Fair play to them, since the release of ‘Insomnia’ in 1995, Faithless have matured into an internationally respected act. Selling in excess of 1,000,000 in the UK alone the band’s recent ‘Greatest Hits’ album went triple platinum. A group of UK musicians described originally as a cross between trip-hop and dance, Faithless garnered attention for tracks like ‘God Is A DJ’ and ‘We Come 1’. Attempts to blend a range of genres into a mixtape sounding collection of sounds gave rise to their debut ‘Reverence’ and Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Rollo have since achieved success as artists and DJs in their own right, working with everyone from Paul Oakenfold to Robbie Williams.
This release sees the crew back together for the next instalment of the 3D series for Renaissance, following on from Satoshi Tomiie’s 3D release earlier in the year. Not that the release should really come as a surprise, Faithless’ relationship with Renaissance being a long one an all, and Sister Bliss in particular a long time friend of Renaissance and a continuing presence at many of the brand’s events around the World.
Offering a unique insight into the Faithless world, the record comprises three-discs: a Studio disc, a Club disc and a Home disc, the first being dedicated to Faithless’ productions, co-productions and remixes including Donna Sumer’s ‘I Feel Love’, ‘Black Grape’s ‘Get Higher’, Tricky’s ‘For Real’ as well Faithless’s ‘Woozy’ and ‘Blissy’s Grove’. House lovers are however, likely to be tickled pink by Rollo and Sister Bliss’s hot, rubbery remix of Living Joy’s house classic, ‘Dreamer’.
Disc 2 is your Club date, a house-heavy conflation of crowd-pleasers that balances the plate-spinning ‘Running Up That Hill’ from Re-Touch, with Fukadelkic oversights like ‘Wonderland Avenue’ by White Horse. Purists may balk at inclusions like Deep Dish and Stevie Nicks but there’s enough in the way of surprises on disc 3 to make up for any lapses and omissions present here: Street’s-esque rapper LSK on ‘The Takeover’, Ian Brown and ‘F.E.A.R’, the delirious pop-funkery of Scritti Politti, jazz-folkster John Martyn, the Jungle Brothers, Joe Cocker, Roots Manuva, The Real Thing.
There’s bound to be scores of things they’ve missed, but as a three-dimensional look at the Faithless brain, it’s far from glancing.