Drum & Bass Warfare [PA]

After having made a surprisingly comfortable transition to hardcore hip-hop (with the help of some quality rappers), Adam F. returned with the remixes -- and got some more high-profile friends to bring it off. A triple-team of producer (F. himself) with American rappers and (usually) British drum'n'bass remixers, Drum and Bass Warfare may be a bit too much of the same sound to sustain interest, but it certainly doesn't slip when it comes to post-production talent: Bad Company, J Majik, Roni Size, Swift, Dillinja, Origin Unknown, Ray Keith, Mickey Finn, and DJ Hype and Pascal. Fortunately, the jungle scene has progressed far enough in ten years to make a dozen straight remixes palatable, with Size and Bad Company leading the way with radically different rerubs of the same track: "Smash Sumthin'" featuring Redman. Ironically, though John B's remix of "Karma" makes Gang Starr's Guru sound like he doesn't belong in front of a drum'n'bass track, the High Contrast version a few tracks later has the perfect wash of acid-jazzy tones to make it work. Yes, there are a few too many rollers in a row, but near the end Ray Keith shows how it's done with one of the most distinctive remixes of the year, an in-your-face storm of split-second breaks, clipped beats, and effects verging on distortion. The first disc is mixed (slightly), while the second includes DJ Craze's fast-moving mix of the same tracks. ~ John Bush