Chilled Out
Festival season used to be so simple. You'd turn up to a field in the middle of nowhere, enjoy the music, risk you lives by using the chemical toilets, try some dodgy festival food dripping in grease before dancing and singing like a banshee in what normally would pass as a muddy bog. Now though there seems to be a trend forming, one where you are still able to depart worse for wear after a blinding weekend, a couple of hours of which you some how seem to have no recollection of, but now there's an added twist where you leave with the festival survivor kit comprising of a t-shirt and as the trend evolves, the compilation CD to relive all those key moments. From Glastonbury to Creamfields, they're all getting in on the act and as if not wanting to fall behind, The Big Chill has jumped on board as well. For fans of the festival that brags about its ability to help you relax, unwind and of course 'chill', they have come up with the ultimate fan's compilation. Forget a CD made up of simply the biggest crowd pullers, Big Chill have gone one better by getting a man who can cause a security worry in dance tent and who can command standing ovations based on his skills behind the decks; Mr Scruff.
Comprising of the type of tunes that blend the mellow with the soulful and deep, Mr Scruff's Big Chill Classics delivers everything that sums up the ambient, laid back festival. Dennis Yost and The Classics IV's 'All In Your Mind' is a folksy slice of soul sprinkled with a light layer of jazz that somehow finds itself in the company of The In Crowd's 'Back A Yard', a reggae fuelled mellow number that eventually breaks out into a full on dub addled frenzy courtesy of an apt twiddle of a studio button. Other inclusions range from Motown legend Rick James' velvet edged vocals on 'Getting It On (In The Sunshine)' to the funk laced deep jazz of Das Goldene Zeitalter's 'A Vision'.
Everything is here bar the tent, as Mr Scruff's Big Chill Classics truly captures the essence of the festival where being cool calm and collected is the order of the day. Been to the festival? Then you will most certainly be wanting the album that let's you relive the experience in all its laid back glory.