Editorial Reviews

An occasionally darker matter than Andrew Weatherall's likeminded mix of post-punk and early industrial, Nine O'Clock Drop, I Can't Live Without My Radio could be referred to as Nine O'Clock Drop Dead. Granted, DJ Morpheus didn't put this together for Cleopatra, the likes of Medium Medium and Heaven 17 sound excited about being alive, and there's a reasonable amount of variety considering the aesthetic focus. Jeff and Jane Hudson's "Los Alamos" and the Residents' "Kaw-Liga" begin the set with a sinister pulse, while Virgin Prunes' "Pagan Love Song" opens it up with hedonist rampage, which only comes to a grinding halt with the screech of Medium Medium's punk-funk "Hungry, So Angry." Just as importantly, the transitions aren't harsh. (The disc is technically, albeit barely, mixed for added sense of continuity.) If you've been following DJ Morpheus since his series of Freezone mixes, this should be a welcomed change of pace; most of the songs in the mix were released while he was known as one of the members of Israeli post-punks Minimal Compact, and it's apparent that he's thrilled to revisit his past. As he points out in his liner notes, several of the songs are politically charged and translate (depressingly enough) to 2005 -- Heaven 17's "We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang," Time Zone's "World Destruction," and Love and Rockets' "Ball of Confusion" in particular. Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

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