Cinco De Mowo!

1	Shake Ya Boogie 2:34
2	Tickle It 2:44
3	Olé Baby 3:30
4	Que Bom 3:20
5	Reykjavik 2:24
6	Changes 3:59
7	I Got You / Morley 3:40
8	Siss Boom Bah! 4:22
9	Brown Liquor 3:53
10	Les and Eddie 4:26
11	Son of Sanford 4:11
12	Pretty 3:11
13	Songnumber3 3:49

Barnes & Noble

Mocean Worker's tools may be samplers and studio electronics, but his heart is all jazz. Adam Dorn, whose father Joel Dorn is the legendary Atlantic records producer, has been steeped in music from a tender age, virtually babysat by the likes of Dr. John and Miles Davis. As he's followed his star into the electronica realm, first as a drum 'n' bass DJ, it's only natural that his love for jazz should come to the fore. On the aptly titled fifth album, Cinco de Mowo!, that '30s and '40s big-band rhythm comes roaring. While the combination of Cab Calloway sonics and contemporary beats my bring to mind queasy recollections of Us3, Mowo's M.O. runs deeper. Using studio musicians to record "samples" which he then distresses and reconfigures into completely new contexts, Dorn devises addictive dance music that's layered with incredibly funky source materials. From big-band beats to Latin swing, this is one cinematic party record that appeals to the higher and lower senses.

All Music Guide

For his fifth album under the name Mocean Worker, Adam Dorn moves beyond the boundaries of mainstream electronica and digs into his crate of old records. Really old records. Like, 78 rpm records from the 1930s, as well as soul and funk gems from the '60s and '70s and a variety of Latin sounds. The music that results sounds a bit like a more muscular (and very much more American) version of what the Real Tuesday Weld does with sounds from the heyday of the English music hall. Cinco de Mowo! veers happily back and forth between funky reappropriations of old big band music (check out the archaic but hard-edged "Shake Ya Boogie") and gleeful Latin jazz (check out the fun, if slightly repetitious, "Olé Baby" and the more subtle and jazzy "Pretty"). In between are some surprises: cameo appearances by Rahsaan Roland Kirk ("Reykjavik," "Siss Boom Bah!") and Herb Alpert ("Changes") and a soulful and understatedly sexy love song featuring a female vocalist named Morley ("I Got You"). The album closes on a cool note, with the almost ambient "Songnumber3." There aren't very many truly unique voices in the world of electronic music these days, but Mocean Worker is one of those few. Rick Anderson