K-Rec

Van City citizen Kent Stephany wants to party like it's 1999. It's an admirable goal of course, '99 was a fun year by all measurements, but the music world has moved on some and these Fatboy Slim-inspired songs wind up sounding quite dated. His entire debut Disque Jockey sounds like a grab bag of once-hip styles - flirting with trip-hop on "Invisible Beauty" (with chanteuse Monica Schroeder) and party-oriented instrumental hip-hop throughout. Occasionally, K-Rec mixes up something interesting, such as the bluegrass licks on "Mindbender," but even that is weakened by the played-out pitched-up vocals. Thankfully, Funkdoobiest's Son Doobie uses his still-present MC skills to save "Trouble" with his amusing claims that his track is "not mediocre." Unfortunately, the rest of the album is.