Publication: URB MAGAZINE

Article: A Taste Of Cajual – Mixed By Mark Grant

Author: Anthony Gancarski

Reference: Seven-year anniversary session-page 82

(Cajual) This compilation is a nearly perfect introduction to Chicago's Cajual Records. Mark Grant's seamless mixing gives props to acid tinged instrumental tracks like Johnny Fiasco's "Sunrise" (a late-night stormer worthy of the high point of a Deep Dish set, with ethereal keyboards that counterpoint bleeps straight out of a Phuture track from '88) and vocal dubs like Deep Sensation's "Talking" which, with a bassline straight out of Sterling Void's subconscious, is both irresistibly pop and compulsively underground all at once.

Although the mix is a bit heavy on sameish instrumentals, Cabrini-Greens and Cornbread's "Club Lonely" (not to be confused with the Li'l Louis classic in any way at all) is the kind of anonymous track one would expect to hear as party music on a soap opera. Meanwhile, Green Velvet's "Answering Machine" makes up for any boring patches of the mix. The "I-Don't-Need-This-Shit!" refrain is interesting and vital, and overall "Answering Machine" is the best house track to blast out of your car windows since Sagat's "FukDat."