Some CTW readers might have been frustrated recently by reading my reviews of the fabulous Professor Kliq here and here only to find that they can't listen to the praiseworthy music. To cut a long story short, Patrick Haour, the very nice if tremendously hirsute Head of Music at Jamendo, suggested to the Prof that it might be a good idea to withdraw his albums because they contained a few samples taken from commercial works and therefore contravened the original artists' copyright agreements. The Prof duly complied, and hence I had to leave notes on the relevant reviews apologising for the absence of top-notch funky, ambientish Big Beat.
However, the recidivist has returned and is ready to pay his debt to society. The Prof has reworked some of the tracks from his albums and compiled them into a completely fluffy, legal and non-litigious collection of tracks entitled Community Service 2005-2009. As a certain shame-faced muso admits at the end of Apt 808, the first track on the album: "I, er, got an email from Patrick and, er, [nervous chuckle] yeah, looks like we got some cleaning up to do." Cue the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Heh.
A minor quibble: the album's mastering level seems a little high compared with Le Kliq's previous records, and occasionally there is a preponderance of high frequencies that are a tad harsh on my battered ears. This might be a consequence of the tracks' remodelling or, more likely, my impending decrepitude but worry not; overall, they're still a pleasure for the eardrums.
Having spent no little time on reviewing his previous criminal records - look, there's no way I was going to resist that pun, so deal with it - I'm not going to bore you further with my opinion of the Prof's retooling of old works. All I will say, apart from the fact that Der Kliqster must be the love-child of James Brown and FatBoy Slim, is that you should kliq (Ach, CTW, you kill me viz dis ting you call “hughmer”) the list in the Jamendo player and play Bust This, Bust That and The Most Beautiful Day. (RSS subscribers, you'll just have to don rubber gloves and strip-search Catching The Waves if you want to hear the music.) After that, thank the heavens for the wonderful world of Creative Commons, download Community Service (2005-2009), and share it with your friends, families and parole officers. You might also consider leaving a small donation at Professor Kliq's Jamendo page to help him with his rehabilitation into society.
Remember, play these tracks first (click on the album's title and you'll get a pop-up list): Bust This, Bust That = big beat/electronica nirvana, and The Most Beautiful Day = big beat/superb downtempo funk/nutty voiceover. If you don't play them before the other tracks - well, I know a guy called Otis who's feeling a little lonely now the Prof is free to walk the streets.
