DJ-Kicks

It would be wrong to describe Moodymann's DJ-Kicks set as a feel-good mix--it's much more than that, brimming with the highs and lows that real life can offer--but it is a joy to listen to, and that in itself is plenty.

With his first officially licensed mix CD, for the 51st entry in the DJ-Kicks series, one might expect a set of dusty disco and deep house, but Dixon confounds expectations throughout, detouring at peak moments, going left where he might build momentum, all of it leading to luminous results.

It may have taken him a long time to release a mix in this way, but the quality of DJ-Kicks makes it worth the wait. At 30 selections, the tracklist is remarkably long, but nothing feels rushed.

It’s an essential purchase for anyone vaguely interested in music with a soulful pulse.

With the presence of so many just-off-the-map yet accessible tracks, this set serves as an entry point to a host of artists all sharing a similar aesthetic operating at different levels drawn together by an overarching understanding of how music works on multiple levels. In this, Moodymann’s installment of DJ-Kicks may well become the unimpeachably perfect bar against which all subsequent sets will be measured.

Dixon judiciously edited over one-third of the tracks to facilitate flow, his craftiness most evident in the way Talc's breezy part-soft rock/part-Daft Punk hybrid melts into one of Beady Belle's graceful lounge laments. Dixon's taste dips back several decades, but he keeps it relatively contemporary all the way through.

There’s little sense of genre in an record-industry sense here. The pieces Moodymann mixes together, like the downtempo house of Daniel Bortz’s “Cuz You’re The One” and Swedish folksinger José González’s mournful “Remain,” shouldn’t work, but they keep the calm atmosphere going.