Top Timing

In 1997 Fantomas released a compilation of mondo music called Sexopolis. That record featured a host of DJs and other electronica personalities for a veritable orgy of cheesy electronic lounge jazz. BNX is taking the mantle a step further by creating his own blend of mondo music and titling it Mondo Globe. It's a conceit to be sure since all the tracks have been widely recognized as club classics in one country or another, and Bordeaux, where Fantomas is, is hardly touted as a world-class dance music city, but there is plenty of interesting music here so he can be forgiven -- at least until the next volume of this "new genre" is issued. BNX sets things off with this own theme in hip-hop crash house style with lots of horns and polyrhythms thrown in under the basic break, and he segues nicely into an old Estardy tune before coming into his own again with "Mondo Popp," a celebration of exotica and tacky muzak and jazzed-out house beats. Basically the entire set moves back and forth between laid-back groovers and up-tempo leapers, and it cuts a nice swathe through the music of the '60s and '70s and juxtaposes lounge jazz as a backdrop. The most winning combination is when BNX slips Manu Dibango's "Soul Fiesta" between his own "Ultra Bossa" and the dreamy, drippy, horn-drenched drifter "Nababkuk." The movement of cultural musics from one sector of the world to the next is impressive, but the flow through of grooves is unstoppable, as dub effects and scratches shimmy through in the background. This is worth the price of the CD alone. ~ Thom Jurek|