VA - Derrick Carter & Mark Farina - Live at OM (2004)

This is a pretty unusual release -- a two-disc album documenting two live DJ sets as performed on Valentine's Day weekend of 2004 by deep house legends Derrick Carter and Mark Farina. Each DJ's set is presented in unedited form on one of the two discs. Both programs are perfectly fine and either will rock the party thoroughly, but Carter's set is maybe the more consistently adventurous and interesting of the two, keeping the beats reliably solid and steady while imposing distortions and subtle syncopations that make the rhythms sound funkier than they really are -- note especially his artful treatment of Moodlex's "Just One Look [Jacob London Remix]" and his dub-inflected take on "Computer Madness" by Steve Poindexter. As for Farina, he too does a good job of creating a constantly shifting pastiche of textures and flavors within the basic house framework, though with perhaps a bit less sparkling creativity. He holds the jazz elements to a minimum on this set, focusing instead on Chicago-flavored fare like Cajmere's "Conflict" and Vibezelect's strange but soulful "Do What You Know." Recommended.