Mashed Up Funk At Juno Download

Review: Four more bootleg blends from the Mashed Up Funk series, which expertly layers well known acapellas over brilliant funk tracks to consistently provide priceless "WTF?" moments in dj sets. First up is Hot Start which glues the vocals from The Prodigy's Firestarter over the Blaxploiation theme Hot Wheels by Badder Than Evil. A B-Boy staple (that showed up on the Chemical's "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" mix), it sounds even more bad ass with Keith sneering "twisted firestart-ahh" over the top. Shimmy Strut welds together ODB's classic Shimmy Shimmy Ya over a recent cover of The Meters' Cissy Strut, and puts some seriously funky swagger under the immortal chorus "Ooh baby I like it raw". Tutto Dreams fuses together a Tutto Matto track with the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams acapella - a nice twist since it's usually the instrumental parts of Lennox's and Stewart's perennial classic that get the mash-up treatment. The superb clash of the ice cold vocals with the warm organic drums and wah-wah guitars has to be heard to be believed. Rounding off the set is Change My Bucket, which takes K-OS' Crabbuckit acapella and marries it to the Stereo MC's mix of Quannum's I Changed My Mind - still a Nu-Funk anthem after all these years and cleverly recontextualised here. All four tracks are well-crafted, perfectly matched and will kick off a party with ease - just remember to act like you're laying down the acapellas yourself when you play them out!

Review: Always a treat for anyone who likes a crafty mash up of various different acapellas over some cast-iron funky goodness, Mashed Up 8 sees Congorock's "Babylon" getting layered over a brass-led nu-soul tune on "Babylon Funk". Elsewhere, Pharrell's "Can I Have It Like That" sounds great over a beefed up mix of Steely Dan's "Peg" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back" gets supercharged on "Broadway Pussy". The acapella from Cutty Rank's 1991 classic "The Stopper" rounds off the set, this time layered over an organ-led funky jam on "Door Stoppa". As always, these guys come up trumps and pack some wickedly original party breaks into their releases.

Review: The next episode of this peerless series of edits, party bootlegs and mashed up hip-hop is here, and as ever the folk at Mashed Up Funk don't disappoint. Cut Chemist's long lost remix of Major Force's "Return of The Original Artform" gets revamped, this time with the addition of the acapella from The Jets' "Crush On You" on "Major Crush", while Busta Rhymes gets a swamp New Orleans rerub on the brilliant "Break Myself". Daft Punk gets washed over with a nu-funk cloth on "Harder Rocker" while Royksopp get a hip-hop overhaul on the mighty "Golden Apple".

Review: This epic series of funk-skewed, breaks and hip-hop mash ups continues in great form with this latest volume, featuring "Go Well" which pits the acapella of Yazoo's classic "Don't Go" against a vicious nu-funk beat. Up next, "Cantaloop Dog" reinvents Dre and Snoop's "Next Episode" vocals over a kicking reggae cover of Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island".

Review: Four more sophisticated edits, mash-ups and cheeky bootleg breaks from the Mashed Up crew, with Michael Jackson getting a seriously rootsy funk makeover on "Criminal Seminar" and under-appreciated old skool rhymer MC Lyte getting a Hammond jazz remake on "Cold Brew". Also look out for the body-popping brilliance of Laid Back's "White Horse" getting some Miami flavour on "Whoop Horse" and even J-Lo getting layered under a blast of popcorn funk on "Bongo Play".

Review: This crew is known for delivering release after release of seamless, if often cheeky, bootlegs and mash-ups, and this latest installment is no different. What does separate it from most of their previous releases though, is the size: this one clocks in with a whopping 16 tracks! As usual it's a funk-heavy selection, of which highlights include an organ-led, 60s style makeover for the Jacksons on "Dave Jackson", the P-Funkisms of "Party Sweep", the Yazoo-twisting of "Go Well" and the Snoop Dogg-goes-ska laid back grooves of "Cantaloop Dog".