Artist: Steve Lawler
Title: Global Underground: Lights Out
Label: Global Underground
By: Simon Jones | 19 June 2002
Tracklist:

• Disk 1
• Disk 2

1. Lights Out - Intro Part 1 Feat Helena Barber
2. Shmuel & Baranes - Spanish Tales
3. Sam-U-L - Generate
4. Ultra Fine - Kasso
5. Frank O Moiraghi & Mr Mike - Harlem Shuffle
6. Paranoid Jack - Dirty Fingernails
7. The Scumfrog - The Watersong
8. J & S - Sunrise
9. Steve Lawler - Andante
10. Swain & Snell - Electro Track
11. Cevin Fisher - Lets Get It Together (Somebody)
12. Thick Dick - Orgasm
13. Angelo Kortez Feat Alan T - Houze Muzik

1. Lights Out - Intro Part 2 Feat Vaule
2. Union - Technological Aspects (Cevin Fisher Beats)
3. Daniel Mode - Music Pressure
4. Pimp - The Light (ATT Mix)
5. John Ciafone - Thunder
6. Desert - I See The Light (D'Ramirez Bitcrusher Remix)
7. Rhythm Gangsta - The Crowd Song
8. Crossover - Photographt
9. Dirty Waltzer - By Soul Of Man
10. Psycho Radio - In The Underground
11. Brighton Project - Hardon
12. Dr Kucho & Wally Lopez - La Luna (Antoine 909 Mix)
13. Noize Gate - Bang The Drum
14. Duality - Static
15. Canteen - Everyone Else (Maurice & Noble Mix)

Steve Lawler "Global Underground: Lights Out"

Once upon a time Global Underground was pretty much one of the only "progressive" cd series on the market. However like music, markets evolve and become saturated. You have to do something different in order to push the envelope, to stand out amongst the crowd. It's one of the reasons Boxed have embarked onto yet another new series entitled Lights Out, a series designed to appeal to the primal instincts within that make themselves known on the dancefloor, the raw emotion that takes over you and makes you want to lose yourself, to become someone totally different for the short time the DJ plays the music. Who are you when the lights go out?

Personally I'm Neo lost in the Matrix, Chad becomes Strangelove and Chloe becomes Alice who's tumbled through the rabbit hole. For we all like to escape reality. Thats what we live for. Thats what we work for. You have to work to live, and you dont live if you dont party. So decide right now, who will you become, and where will you go, when the darkness comes, and the lights go out.

Steve Lawler. A dj that started his career under motorways and slowly but surely clawed his way to the premier league, remixing some of the worlds top artists like BT and running a series of successful nights as well entertaining crowds in the very far corners of the globe. Boxed, knowing how this man can dominate and hypnotize crowds have enlisted him to put two discs of pure, unadultered, and most importantly dark beats, grooves and basslines for your listening pleasure, so let yourself go, and prepare yourself. The lights are about to go out.

As the intro kicks tells us its Lights Out, Israel's Shmuel Flash shows us that he too has a darker side, teaming up with fellow Israeli Guy Baranes on the evocative Spanish Tales, the breathy spanish vocal leading into the dark percussion groove of Generate which Shmuel brings to us under his Sam-U-L guise. Already we learn of the percussive vibe that Steve is laying down on this disc, unrelentlessly dropping you into the thick of things using tough drums and basslines in addition to African Chanting in the form of Steve's own Andante track. The beat gets twisted as Swain and Snell drop in Electro Track which takes the mix down to the bare bones before subtly taking things off in a twisted direction with the help of Cevin Fisher and Thick Dick. As the lights flicker, and the drums kick, you will find yourself hypnotised by sounds being laid down here, easing us in slowly for what is still to come.

Steve then decides to add in some of his unique edits, dropping some acapellas into the mix on the second disc which maintains a stripped down consistent pace for the first 30 minutes, blending evocative house grooves with dark twisted fx and spooky noises, before rotating on its axis and getting tough, rough and dirty as Steve uses tracks I See The Light by the excellent Desert alongside tracks from his own Harlem label to turn you inside out and examine your soul and your mind. As the drums roll on, the end comes in the form of Canteen's Everyone Else, its infectiously addictive guitar bassline rocking away to the last seconds. Is it prog rock? Who knows. But one thing's for sure, by the time this disc has finished you will have been twisted, flipped and rocked to the foundations of your body.

I have never been a huge follower of Steve Lawler, and initially approached this album with many preconceptions of what I was going to get from the album. However Steve has really pulled out the stops here and delivered something to silence his detractors and offer something very different from anything he has done previously. Just who did he become when the lights went out?