Audio Remixer: Thievery Corporation.
Recording information: Eighteenth Street Lounge Studio.
Unknown Contributor Roles: GusGus; Rockers Hi-Fi; Stereolab; David Byrne.
With their Thievery Corporation DJ and production house, and their Eighteenth Street Lounge label and (Washington, DC) nightclub, Rob Garza and Eric Hilton spent the late '90s helping redefine the club aesthetic and the club sound aesthetic. Sonically, they are downbeat cats, in love with shaggy hip-hop beats, dubby spaces, organic percussive textures from nearly every continent, and creamy lounge-perfect melodies. Aesthetically, they are hi-fi jet-setters, staying away from the dark and depressing, heading always toward the light, airy spotlight.
On this set, David Byrne gets head-nodding rhythm; Stereolab is reduced to a swirl of melodies (including Laetitia's incomprehensible voice) and beats; Rockers Hi-Fi toast on a bed of fat bass lines and brass kicks, amidst a mellow dancehall haze. While every participant, from reggae stalwarts Black Uhuru to trip-hop opera sculptor Edson Cordeiro, may already be a sympathetic fit with the Corporation's methods and affinities, they get further remade in Garza and Hilton's image. And though it may be simplifyingly gauche to simply call Abductions & Reconstructions a funkier Stateside take on Kruder & Dorfmeister's shtick, it wouldn't be offbase either; and it'd be a compliment.
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