I’m in the tank for Mark Farina. I bought in at Seasons One and have been hooked ever since. Farina has been a consistent mix-cd generator over the past decade, and has two broad styles: groovy San Francisco style house, and downtempo blends of hip hop and jazzy beats.
I’m typically on top of new Farina releases like a hawk, but Mushroom Jazz 6 snuck in during the middle of the 2008 US Presidential campaign. Suffice to say I was somewhat distracted.
In any event, I downloaded the new CD off of iTunes (sans DRM) and have listened twice. Number Six is definitely trying to be much more jazzy than the previous five Mushroom Jazzes. I’m not sure it quite works, but then again each of the previous editions has taken a few repeat listens to grow on me in their unique ways. I’ll wait a little bit to pass final judgement. Somewhat disturbing though is that Mushroom Jazz Six has some subtle djing/blending errors to my bedroom dj level ears. Anything else Farina has done was flawless in this regard.
However, this prompts me to latch on to an opportunity for 2009, review all of the Mushroom Jazz series in depth, and write a wrapup overview. There seem to be a decent amount of web feedback on the newer CDs, but not much on earlier ones. I’ve seen a number of short highly positive sentiments, but it will be fun to do some research and put together an overarching view of this unique ouevre.