Personally, I’m not a big fan of beats albums. At least, not for home listening. In a club, fine, that should be their main purpose. But at home, I have usually had two problems with beats albums:- The titles seem to be going on forever.- There is rarely a variation, within a tune or within the album.
The exceptions are too rare, DJ Eric Lau’s third instrumental album, “Examples” is among those. If this is supposed to be just a taste of what this London DJ can do, great for the clubs and the audiences he plays for. But even as a self-standing album, “Examples” work perfectly. First of all, you can’t catch Lau extending any of the tunes here beyond two and a half minutes, some tunes are just snippets not lasting even a minute. What you get is 28 tunes wishing the reasonable album time of under 45 minutes. Quite enough for a beats home listening album.
Lau’s choice of beats, timing and sequencing here is exemplary. No repeats, no dragging on. What is even more impressive is the choice of beats which concentrate on the more jazzy side (definitely a plus in my book). You have the impression that Lau, not only has an impressive music library but knows every single tune there by heart.
Basically, this is a beats album that is practically tailored for home listening (and grooving) without giving you an inkling of boring you to death or giving you a headache.
In a club setting, this album can serve its title - Examples - examples of what Lau can do, and he can certainly do a lot. One request for Mr. Lau: more examples, please!
