Kid Kameleon's Shockingly Good Mix

Late last year, Kid Kameleon put together a beautifully selected, technically amazing mix (part 1, part 2) to kick off the new Shockout label. Shockout is:

..a Tigerbeat6 sublabel focused on crossbreeding dance and electronic music with raw, influential elements of ragga, jungle, dub and soundsystem culture. Inspired by the leftfield dancehall of Ward 21, Vybez Kartel, Lenky, Remarc, Congo Natty and Bad Company's best releases, the excitement of DJ Rupture's early ragga / IDM / breakcore mashups, and Razor X (the seminal pairing of Kevin Martin's Bug project and the Rootsman's Third Eye label), Shockout specializes in strictly original music and exclusive vocals, hot, vital electronic producers and maverick MCs.

Some of my favorite music of the last year was put out on this label. They are exploring exciting territory, releasing records that work Jamaican musical devices in to something refreshingly outside of their familiar context and often narrow genre conventions. I badly want their sound to explode in to a full-fledged genre (if such a thing is even possible with such an inherently eclectic style), if only so that I will know what to call it when people ask me what kind of music I am listening to these days.

Kid Kameleon's mix, though, covers a lot of territory. Not a lot of people can mix from Missy Elliot to Tom Waits, and make it sound smooth. He's got Nena's 99 Red Balloons, one of my favorite ragga jungle tunes (Power of Trinity by Conquering Lion), the cantina song from Star Wars, and that oh-so-catchy DJ C featuring Gregory Isaacs Shockout dubplate "Gone a Jail" that I've been anxiously waiting to find in the shops since I heard it in an Aaron Spectre mix a few months ago (please hurry, I must have this record). So props to Kid Kameleon for this excellent mix. If you like this one, he's got several more shared on his site.