Various Artists:  
 
DJ Kicks: Peggy Gou 
 
!k7 Records 
 
A really great DJ mix album should mean you really don’t spot any sore thumbs; you don’t care if a song that’s not really to your liking is included – because in and of that moment it sounds good, or at least sounds like it is meant to be there since you’re really buying (and buying into) the taste of a music maker you respect or at the least are curious about… 
 
Peggy Gou’s music became known to me with the release of her Once EP.  
 
Here she completes one of her dreams – making a DJ Kicks mixtape.
 
She’s made the sort of mix that I love – I’m interested in every moment of it because I want to know what motivates here as DJ, as music-maker, as music-lover… 
 
So I’ll wait for Aphex Twin – which I know I’m getting (Gou’s a fan, and it’s no disappointment to hear Vordhosbn folded in on the end of Black Merlin’s Kundu) and if I don’t really care about R-Tyme’s Illusion (which I didn’t) I’ll find a way to enjoy it in the context of this 75+ minute mix (and I did) given I’ll hear all manner of magic and oddities dating back to 1983 and moving as far forward as the present day; in particular there’s a killer run from JRMS (3) through Shade of Rhythm (Exorcist) to Kode9  (Magnetic City) and The System (Vampirella).
 
Gou is expert at assembling a mood-tape that reflects where she’s been, where she’s going, where she came from, where she might go next…and it happens all it once and the vibe is good and chill and forward-thinking and retro – all of it, all at once. 
 
I mean that’s what this stuff is about right? 
 
That’s what I look for and listen to in a mix from the DJ Kicks/Late Night/Back To Mine series’ – and as I wait for more new music from Gou I’ll listen to this and wonder at what points she found – and loved – Spacetime Continuum, Pearson Sound, Sly and Lovechild and I:Cube. 

DJ Kicks, as a series, has hardly ever let me down. This entry is one of my favourites. A great late-90s/early-00s vibe – which has permeated the best of Peggy Gou’s own work to date; a mix of favourites and songs I’m hearing for the first time.  
 
I love it. 
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