Back to Mine

1	Friends and Enemies - DJ Cam / DJ Cam
2	All Alone (No One to be With) - Slick Rick / Slick Rick
3	The Bayou - Deadly Avenger / Deadly Avenger
4	Stars All Seem to Weep - Beth Orton / Beth Orton
5	The Flow (G-Funk Mix) - Model 500 / Model 500
6	Cascades of Colour (Wamdue Black Mix) - The Ananda Project feat. Gaelle Addison / The Ananda Project
7	Do It Now - Dubtribe Sound System / Dubtribe Sound System
8	A Wonderful Life - Carl Craig / Carl Craig
9	To Cry About - Mary Margaret O'Hara / Mary Margaret O'Hara
10	Silent Treatment - The Roots / The Roots
11	Funky for You (Spacehopper Mix) - Deadbeats / Deadbeats
12	Someday We'll All Be Free - Donny Hathaway / Donny Hathaway

Barnes & Noble

The pairing of British dance-pop outfit Everything but the Girl with the after-hours mix-CD series Back to Mine -- which has already produced seamless chill-out mixes from Faithless, Groove Armada, and Danny Tenaglia -- is both smart and beautifully fruitful. Back to Mine aims to reveal the personal and eclectic side of DJs and dance music creators, and with their installment, club denizens Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn treat listeners to a down-tempo session that fuses low-key hip-hop, willowy pop, and spacious house, with the edges between the tracks and genres happily blurred. The duo establishes the mood with DJ Cam's laid-back, piano-laced and sax-gilded grooves on the instrumental "Friends and Enemies," which eventually cedes to Slick Rick's "All Alone (No One to Be With)," which, though it features the MC's smooth flow, isn't much of a pulse-quickener. In fact, from the Roots' slinky "Silent Treatment" to the more up-tempo strains of the Ananda Project's deep house anthem "Cascades of Colour (Wamdue Black Mix)" and the spacious, beat-filled house of Dubtribe Sound System's "Do It Now," this set is more conducive to cushy armchairs than speeding treadmills. Thorn's moody crooning is notably absent here, but tasteful vocals are not. Filling the gap are the equally lovely Mary Margaret O'Hara (the heart-wrenching ballad "To Cry About"), the spirit-lifting soul of Donny Hathaway ("Someday We'll All Be Free"), and Beth Orton, whose "Stars All Seem to Weep" was produced by Watt and reflects his ear for marrying folksy vocals to contemporary club beats. This 70-minute set offers an insight into EBTG's post-club listening habits as well as their musical inspiration -- and it's a lush listen to boot. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

Longtime music connoisseurs and taste-makers Everything But the Girl (aka Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn) were naturals to take over the stereo for a volume in the chillout mix series Back to Mine and, as could be expected, the mix is tasteful, wide-ranging, and above all, astonishingly well-paced. Beginning with a down-tempo hip-hop cut by French DJ Cam and moving into Slick Rick's excellent message track "All Alone (No One to Be With)," Back to Mine moves from jazzy rap and trip-hop into moody techno and deep house, with vocal tracks -- everyone from Beth Orton to Mary Margaret O'Hara to Donny Hathaway -- mixing very well with the instrumentals. Also appearing are two tracks by Detroit techno legends: a mix of "The Flow" by Juan Atkins' Model 500 and "A Wonderful Life" from Carl Craig's Landcruising LP of 1995. Back to Mine is an excellent addition to the scads of mix albums on the shelves, as conscious of perfect transitions and solid mixing as any out there. John Bush