Terranova
DJ-Kicks: Terranova (DJ Mix)
Album · Electronic · 1998
Long before they signed to Kompakt and pivoted to sleek, moody house music, Berlin’s Terranova were making blunted trip-hop indebted to artists like Tricky (who actually featured on their debut album, 1999’s Close the Door). Released the year before that debut even dropped, the group’s DJ-Kicks mix cross-cuts their hip-hop roots with the music of the techno scene that surrounded them. The opening stretch of the set is a noirish tour of gritty breaks and street-corner rapping from artists like DJ Spooky, Antipop Consortium’s Priest and The East Flatbush Project, whose “Tried by 12” was then lighting up leftfield dance floors, thanks to a 1998 remix set featuring Squarepusher and Autechre. With that laidback intro out of the way, Terranova plunge us into a sweaty Berlin basement club, digging out irresistible house and techno jams from Carl Craig, Patrick Pulsinger and Silicon Soul. But for the final 20 minutes or so, they pull out the rug once again, falling back on vintage rap cuts, including their own dubbed-out remix of the Jungle Brothers’ “Jungle Brother”—a deeply satisfying way of bringing the set full circle.