Various Artists Fabric 15: Tyrant, Mixed By Craig Richards
Craig Richards deserves a prize for shining a neon light on some of tech-house and […]
Craig Richards deserves a prize for shining a neon light on some of tech-house and electro’s most interesting underground producers. A resident jock at London’s beloved Fabric club, Richards threads together 37 tracks over two CDs, with only a few clumsy segues and dud selections. The first CD digs deep into minimal tech-house’s quirkiest seams, eschewing huge peaks for a stream of inventively warped and economically chugging highlights by the likes of Seafoam, Pantytec and Mirwais. On disc two, Richards makes us fall in love with electro all over again, excavating nuggets from the genre’s past and present with only one descent into kitsch (Chicks On Speed aping Trio’s bare-bones banality). Fabric 15: Tyrant ranks along with mixes by Michael Mayer, Triple R and Villalobos (represented here with a slinky, floor-churning remix of Sieg Uber Die Sonne’s “You Never Come Back”) as one of the most scintillating comps of the decade.