reBOOT: Notes for the Next Generation

Artist: various artists
CD Title: reBOOT: Notes for the Next Generation
Label: Om Records
Reviewer: Joshua Heinrich
Date: 6/29/05

reBoot: Notes for the Next Generation is a benefit compilation assembled by LA-based humanitarian organization NextAid and Om Records to help African children who have been left parentless due to the country's AIDS epidemic. Filled to the brim (literally, clocking in at just under 80 minutes) with a stylistically diverse array of dance and electronica, the disc features 15 tracks from an impressive assortment of prominent artists.

While the album features a wide range of artists and styles, it is sonically consistent and often held together by common threads, including a purveying sense of Latin and African musical sensibilities and influences, particularly in some of its percussion and instrumentation. Opening with a spoken word introduction concerning the album's mission and message, the disc continues through material that runs the gamut from reggae dub to house to down-tempo to afro-beat and beyond. Standouts include the Louie Vega's "Steel Congo", a Latin dance instrumental, the lovely female vocals and Latin electronica of Kaskade's "Samba Love", and the killer reggae dub of Thievery Corporation's "Truth and Rights". Garth and Markie Mark also deliver a noteworthy laid-back, bass-groove-driven rock dub on "7 Days without Kayan".

In the end, reBoot: Notes for the Next Generation amounts to good music for a good cause, with all proceeds apparently going toward the building of a learning, resource, and housing center in South Africa to teach AIDS awareness and provide shelter for children orphaned by the disease. It's both a solid, sonically and stylistically interesting electronic compilation and an admirable humanitarian undertaking that's certainly worth looking into.