The follow-up to Ayres & Cosmo's much-lauded CD from earlier this year finds the BK/Philly duo laying down another party-starting mix of hip-house staples and uptempo hip-hop jams. A large part of the success of the first one was this carefree disregard for the musical Berlin Wall that supposedly divides house music from hip-hop. Lest we forget, hip-hop owes a huge debt to disco music, and it was still considered dance music until Run-DMC came along and slowed things down. Despite Fat Joe's recent insistence that his, uh, colleagues don't dance, there has been a recent resurgence in uptempo hip-hop, led most notably by Missy Elliot and Outkast - "The Way You Move" was, for all intents and purposes, a house record. All that being said, Ayres and Cosmo do a great job of operating from a middle ground between the two genres, equally appeasing house-heads and hip-hoppers alike by casting a wide net in their choice of track selections, ranging from the rare Dimitri From Paris mix of Stetsasonic's "Talking All That Jazz," to the Jungle Brothers' "What You Waitin' For," a requisite remix of Missy's "Lick Shots," and loads of tracks (35 in all) from Tyree, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Twin Hype, Slick Rick, Queen Latifah, NERD, Julien "Jumpin" Perez (Hot Mix 5 represent– Chicago what!) and more. Extra props to the boys for keeping things fresh with leftfield/broken beat joints like the killer Seiji remix of Q-Tip's "Breath & Stop," and the Yam Who rework of "Frontin." Everything's mixed in a proficient and smooth style that keeps things moving. Also includes a free CD recorded live at the monthly Rub party in BK.

reviewed by Language