New Order Online - A New Order / Joy Division Web Site

Release Notes

"As half of the Global Communication team, dance populist Tom Middleton advanced the course of ambient house, and later deep house, immeasurably. As a DJ, he's done the same — this time, with a gargantuan three-disc mix album appropriately dubbed The Sound of the Cosmos. As he outlined in the notes, Middleton aimed to create a pre-recorded (not live) mix including his favorite songs of late, purposefully straying from the usual culprits on mix albums: the dozens of producers who play the grand mix-album licensing game as a for-profit enterprise, plus the ranks of well-meaning downbeat producers whose tracks get roped in to so many compilations they end up sounding as used and useless as dirty dishwater. That alone distinguishes The Sound of the Cosmos from 90 percent of the mix albums being released, while the quality of his selections, mixing skills, and sense of flow account for the other ten percent. Each disc is a separate section (Rhythm, Melody, Harmony), though all of them use house and jazz-funk as a blueprint — differing only in tempo and beats. The first is the closest to a contemporary club mix, including the chart-topper "Sunglasses at Night" by Tiga & Zyntherius, though true to Middleton's form, it's deftly mixed over what turns out to be a natural complement: New Order's "Blue Monday." Many of the highlights, though, occur on the third disc, one of the most delicious downbeat mixes heard in recent years. Middleton brings together a wide range of surprisingly complementary producers — from Ulrich Schnauss to A Tribe Called Quest to Blu Mar Ten to Groove Armada — and makes nearly every track his own, thanks to a superb, gently flowing mix but also the fact that these are such distinctive inclusions. It may be difficult to recognize and appreciate such an intriguing mix when faced with almost four hours of songs, few of which have been anthologized before, but The Sound of the Cosmos is worth spending the time." — John Bush