Z-Trip has
been called the greatest DJ in the world for a
long, long time now. He’s been at the turntablism
game for nearly a decade, and has all the right
friends, and perhaps a few ‘wrong’ ones too.
Still, you can’t be doing something
totally wrong to get the likes of Soup from Jurassic
5, Lyrics
Born, Aceyalone and Chuck D throughout the course
of Shifting Gears. Then there’s Linkin Park’s
Chester Bennington, who appears on single “Walking
Dead”, which is currently going absolutely gangbusters
at American radio.
But, really, it’s nothing compared to “Breakfast
Club”, featuring Murs and Supernatural. One of the
most ‘natural’ and brilliantly joyful sounding hip-hop
songs for quite some time, with a chorus that’s nothing
short of cracklingly addictive. It begins with a
dedication to hop-hop that makes you happy, and it’s
exactly that – it most certainly brings a smile to
your dial.
Elsewhere, some of the breaks found on Shifting
Gears are nothing short of incredible, but
it’s the variety and freshness of this debut album
that makes it so damn enjoyable. Wicked guitar
breaks filter in between sampled sounds of waves
lapping at a beach, and Z-Trip proves with Shifting
Gears that with a clever ear and a great sense
of sound, music sounds better when it’s crafted
with fun as its initial aim.