While Thievery Corporation's first full album is less sophisticated than their later outings its rawer, less "crafted" style means that its best tracks have a distinctly more exciting edge. "The Glass Bead Game", "So Vast is the Sky" and ".38.45" just jump out of the speakers with their highly infectious mix of electronica, hip-hop & dub while "Shaolin Satellite's" drivingly addictive beats and multi-layered swathes of organs & sitars put it up there with the very best of the whole electronica/dance scene. Others drift, often much too languidly, between genres giving a rambling and disjointed feel to the album as a whole but, if you're a fan of Thievery Corporation or of high quality downbeat "world" music then what's good on it is too good to miss.

The whole track has a very slow moving, heavily drugged out feeling, definitely NOT their best mix.

My addiction to this stuff is way over the top. I need to get in touch with these dudes so i can croon discordant and seductive!!! If i couldnt describe myself in words, which i cant, this type style of flow would do it. Excellent. Picked this up last nite at Tower. Each album ages sweet! Now to finish my collection.


*Rubbing hands greedily.

This is a great CD, every track is different but good. I have all their other CDs and this one completes my collection. Most music in this genere fall into one of two catagories. The more pop-oriented bands like Morcheeba, Zero 7, Hooverphonic, etc. or the more unusual ones like Stereolab, Spicehouse, Portishead, etc. Theivery Corporation is somewhere in the middle. They have good songs put together in unique ways. Their music is always refreshing. My favorite songs on this CD are; The Oscillator, Sun, Moon, and Stars, Incident At Gate 7 and Transcendence. If you like Trip-Hop/Chill, you can't go wrong with any of their albums.

Having re-released their other albums as digipaks, Thievery Corporation did so with their first album. This is technically a re-release of the 1999 re-release, with Transcendence, Scene at the Open Air Market, Encounter in Bahia, Assault on Babylon, and One. They have removed the track Manha (which doesn't appear on the original CD anyway), which is not a big loss, and adds two tracks: Sun, Moon and Stars (from the Incident at Gate 7 single), and The Sleeper Car (from the 38.45 single). Sun, Moon, and Stars is a very nice uptempo song with a reggae-style beat, and The Sleeper Car is a very laid-back relaxed song. This is a great purchase if you didn't have these songs. Now, if they would just get around to compiling all their other B-sides, we'd be in business.