DJ-mix series come and go, but the paired Fabric and FabricLive mixes have so far issued 80 CDs. To see how they stack up as a whole, we’re reviewing them in numerical order, and very loosely: in some cases I will only have played the mixes only two or three times.

FabricLive 03: DJ Hype (April 2002)
Hated most of this the first time through: drum and bass at its deepest moment of impasse, to my ears, and impossible to care about at this late date. But with time it makes more sense: not Bad Company’s nightmares on wax (with bongos) so much as when DJ Zinc makes everything sound aquatic and colorful, or when Moving Fusion bends its snarfing, sinister low-end into shapes that riff rather than unfurl, or when Brockie & Ed Solo filter soundtrack horns so they sound like they’re passing like signs on the freeway, or when Hype himself scratches up a storm on “True Playaz Style.” I’ll never care about this stuff the way I do its predecessors, but if you do there’s a lot worse you can do.