专辑简介

by Joshua GlazerCan house music really survive without Dubtribe Sound System? In the tradition of such aching yet genius swansongs as the Smiths' Strangeways Here We Come or (dare it be suggested) the Beatles' Abbey Road, Baggage was recorded with the bittersweet knowledge that it would be the last album that Sunshine and Moonbeam would ever make. And with that knowledge comes a somber tone that never before permeated the quite obviously hippie gatekeepers to West Coast house. But this is still Dubtribe, the duo who made a career from laying down some insanely popular dance tracks while sitting cross-legged on the floor of the rave. Who else could name their tracks "Shakertrance" and "Raggastronique" without being scoffed at in a time when house music is marketed as the soundtrack to overpriced cocktail consumption rather than the spiritual dance ritual that inspired Dubtribe and thousands of others at the start of the rave movement? "This Is the Time" pays homage to the music's roots in disco with a string-driven refrain that repeats the infamous mantra of party people, "Get down tonight," while the epic "Do It Now" (the hit that inspired this final Dubtribe outing) swells and falls and swells and falls, over and over again, like the best energy juice that dance music can offer. Mimicking both the continuous groove of the DJ and their own legendary ten-hour jam sessions, each track on Baggage flows into the next while still managing to maintain its own identity. Perhaps by making a timely exit, Dubtribe themselves will maintain their own identity, away from the generic groove cycle that most house music has become.