"World music" is a reductive term, and has been pretty much from the get-go; any genre name that can be used to describe both South African township music and Algerian raï could stand to have a few more qualifiers added. But with the acceleration of trans-cultural scene-splicing arising from increased mobility and the Internet's instant accessibility, it makes more sense as a catchall term than it did 15 years ago. After Buraka Som Sistema took the Portuguese importation of Angola's electronic Afro-soca kuduro sounds and pushed it into the same vogue that neo-ghettotech and Brazilian baile funk enjoyed earlier in the 2000s, it became obvious how approachable this strain of music could be from just about any cultural angle.
And so FabricLive 49 pulls in cross-pollinated sounds from across the globe-- producers, remixers, and vocalists from Angola, Portugal, the U.S., the UK, Jamaica, Peru, Argentina, France, Austria, and Estonia are represented-- and throws them together in a way that shrugs at borders. But while it's thrilling to hear these sounds unified in a way that exhibits the universality of a certain beat, the breath-snatching density of it all doesn't give individual sounds much elbow room. It's not easy to find a foothold, which isn't a slam against the music itself. It's just that it's paced in a way that makes you scramble to catch up.
Opening with a track like Dre Skull's Sizzla electro-dancehall feature "Gone Too Far" (how's that for a title to start a mix?) puts things off on a prematurely amped-up note. It sounds more like something you'd drop in the middle of a set to jolt energy levels than an opener, and they get a bit too rapidfire in their attempts to ratchet things up a couple levels from there. Weaving together two different mixes of BSS' "General" (Stenchman's buzzing, spitting dubstep rework and L-Vis 1990's ghetto/house version) is a sharp trick, but before that fusion can take root, Ku Bo's "Tsu Bo" spills over into it and lets its burbling rattle dominate. And then that gets crushed under the dr [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| y hydraulics and rusty-crank rattle of DJ Znobia's "Pausa", which itself bursts like an old cartoon boiler as soon as Roulet's mix of Black Diamond standout "Kurum" stomps in. It'd make for a great mid-mix peak; coming in the first 10 minutes, it's almost like you need to pause for a moment just to recharge.
The restless middle section of the mix almost feels like a diversion in comparison, the insistent kuduro rhythms splintering into hints at electro and UK funky before dropping into a bracing detour through dubstep. The overstuffed lead-in recedes into a comparatively spacious second act, Skream's brisk but clean uptempo machine-gun wobble "Fick" crumbling away into the relative calm of BSS member DJ Riot's dreamlike, harp-plucking "Mermaid Dub" before shuddering back to trapped-animal agitation with Zomby's chattering "Dynamite Sandwich". (The latter two tracks, aside from anchoring the mix's best stretch, make their debut here.) By the time the obligatory nod to hip-hop comes in the form of Crime Mob's spare, minimalist (but nod-provoking) "Rock Yo Hips", it all starts to make a bewildering sort of sense.
Then it's back to the thick of things, with all sorts of slippery polyrhythmic jump cuts piling over each other and threatening to overpower you almost as much as they provoke your impulse to move. Fortunately, the density's broken up by the time FabricLive 49 hits its final stretch. While the first five tracks zoom by in just over nine minutes, the last five churn along at 18 and change. Selections from Harvard Bass and Novalima, and a BSS remix of Major Lazer get a good stretch to unfold on their own terms and insinuate themselves more easily. Where the music's given space to stretch, the collisions between musical traditions become that much more exciting. FabricLive 49's strengths come when the barrages settle down, letting the extended grooves of each song make it a lot clearer how little global distance is actually separating them.
