4-CD SET
Chris Lum: Looking Back On Lum label: Moulton

Chris Lum's Moulton Studios is the epicenter of SF's entire dance music community - in one building, so many iconic labels and careers were launched. Chris himself is a talented producer and musician with a tremendous range. This CD release, 4 hours long, is a personal exploration of solo projects, collaborations, remixes, and even projects from a class he designed. There is so much diverse music here, everything from techy house to sexy pop, funk, electro-disco, and more. It really shows that Chris loves to have fun (with a lot of funk thrown in) with his music.

Chris has been a guest at KZSU before, and it's important to show some love to someone who has been such a great influence on so many DJs and producers from the Bay Area. From each CD, you can select some choice tracks and have some fun on your own.

Part 1 - Picks: 1,2,4,6,8
1. Blissful dance music w/ broken beats, bubbly synths, and funky grooves all over
2. Broken-beat disco-fied groover w/ great synth improv work all over
3. Sexy pop-house w/ sensual vocals & samples, a club crowd-pleaser
4. Big thumpin' beats, soft synth washes, funky bassline, cheerful little acid blurbs
5. Club banger! Big bassline and mad tribal percussion, reverbed vocal samples. Pumpin' house track.
6. A deeper remix - long synth intro leads to a lush and deep-tech version of "Big Tool"
7. Electro-disco - big electro bassline and spoken-word speech meets some sweet synths
8. Inspiring. A Dr. King speech overlaid on top of some really smooth disco-fied uptempo house music

Part 2 - Picks: 9,10,13,14,15
9. Downtempo track - mostly synths and some broken-beats with prayer-musings
10. A thoughtful instrumental ballad with real instruments, drums & pianos.
11. Techy house with vox emphasizing "feeling high", driving bassline and big beats
12. Big funky broken-beats with airplane landing sounds & male vox "can we get connected"
13. HUGE slammin' beats with a funky guitar sample and smooth synths. Groovy!
14. Epic 12-minute funk noodling. Basslines, disco drops, crazy effects, wacky kids vocals, lots of references to the West Coast scene at the end
15. Very sexy Euro-style house with lots of acid thrown in. Fem vox in French always works for me. Certainly dramatic.

Part 3 - Picks: 17,18,20
16. Diva vocals over huge broken-beats, funky basslines w/ rich swirls & washes of synths.
17. Solid disco here, catchy vocal samples and funky synths & grooves all over.
18. All sorts of funky improv here. Groovy bassline, piano noodling, gnarly effects.
19. Straight-up R&B number with Nina's vox featured over Chris's electronics.
20. Latiny-flavored pumped-up house, lots of percussive layers and punchy beats over some dramatic vocals in Spanish
21. FCC! "Fuck you up" - a combative electro track challenging the music industry
22. Jazzy drums, church bell, some flamenco guitar, moody synths. Not sure if it all works, but it's thoughtful and interesting nonetheless
23. New-wave-influenced commercial dance-pop featuring Nina's vox & lyrics about an online romance

Part 4 - Picks: 25,26,27,29
24. Bass-heavy broken-beat tech-house. My big issue with the track is the poor audio quality of the speech sample which is just too muffled
25. Unbelievably funky here. So many iconic funk sounds and grooves are featured. The synths later in the track are really sweet
26. The title says 80's but it's not "New Wave" in the least. It's really a funky track derived from a lot of iconic analog synths and basslines
27. Electro-meets-disco! A fun track with rich synths and all sorts of disco blurps, even some congas thrown in.
28. Chris's remake of INXS's "Don't Change" - in glorious synth-pop with Nina's vox. It's a solid cover. But it does make me long for the original version…
29. Pumped up disco-influenced funky house. Great bassline, nice funky guitar samples.
30. Dirty-funky house with lots of analog effects, sexual vocal samples. FCCs!