Staff Reviews

James Holden - DJ Kicks

Review by Nick Neyland

Holden is capable of spotting missing links and tying them up, but he’s also able to prevent the end result from sounding like a mesh of cacophonous ideas that don’t gel together. »

User reviews

• 10/10 by lcdabdoujaparov

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james holden's status as an exemplary dj free-spirit makes him the perfect choice to mix the next in the legendary 'dj-kicks' series. his tireless dedication to hunting down the next wave of young production talents meets his own sense of exemplary taste when record shopping to bring his unique vision of what a dj mix in 2010 should rightly be. barely coming up for air between his non-stop sampler and cdj wizardry, this mix proves that james holden is a very modern sort of dj, brazenly uniting tracks from music's past and present, disregarding genre, confounding the purists and making club hits out of many an unwitting dancefloor virgin. while many of these tracks would be an unlikely presence in a 'club' context, james holden wishes to make it clear that this is in fact dance music, even if it hasn't yet been branded with that label. he says, 'it is loose and free, maybe more so than if you were playing in a club. but to me this is dance music.' it features piano magic, mordant music, caribou, mogwai, james ruskin, walls, legowelt, lucky dragons etc.
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