Love it when the first look on the tracklist brings my appetite immediately: King kooba, Herbalizer, K&D, Cortiz, Fenomenon, Groovecatcher and Fantastischen Vier? All my favs, with the latter looking like a pleasant surprise, I liked some of their hip-hop grooves back then...
I'm desperately looking for King Kooba tracks lately, this one is excellent - reminded my of an Erykah Badu song "Sometimes" from Baduizm, the first album. It's basically just an interlude but it has the same chords.
Mother is my favourite but I decided not to use it in any of my mixes since the great K&D DJ Kicks, one of my all time best downtempo mixes features this track. Otherwise it'd be prime target for my Nu Dawn Sessions...
Black Baby is similarly popular, it definitely sparks up nostalgia from those time in early 2000s, but IMHO it's been way overplayed and features on many Lounge compilations.
The Alex Cortiz track is awesome, love the phat bassline. Vienna DC and Fenomenon takes it to a bit more ambient level, I'm not a bit fan as you know - that reminded me why I did not like Fenomenon that much in general apart from the remix of "Pacific Memories" (from OM Lounge 5)
Well, if Fenomenon wasn't phenomenal (sorry for the pun), Monte La Rue definitely is! I haven't heard about them so far, nice discovery. Great bassline and drums (bit of a "Bonita Applebum" Tribe Called Quest feeling), also at 25:22 it turnes into this slapping bassline which is Digital Underground's "Freaks Of The Industry" - love that track, just saw the Instrumental selling for 40 GBP on Discogs, the lyrics are quite explicit but the groove would be a nice fit into a downtempo set... That's back from 1992 or something...
Track 9 and 10 are again the run-of-the-mill chillout songs for me, Cafe Del Mar Volume 34 or so (if you know what I mean) but that's personal taste - again, I don't really like the pure electronic ambient arrangements with no funk or jazzy bass or grooves.
The Fantastischen Vier track was a pleasant surprise, well, I was quoting some hip-hop classics above, it's great that you fit this in seamlessly - it's also amazing that they made a track like this at the same time they had "Die Da" (or what was their hit with the Grover Washington Mister Magic sample... great sample though!)
Something's wrong with me perhaps, since I did not like the last one either, it's OK, but too electronic and too ambient for me... No offence, it's clearly my personal taste.
Your mixing is flawless and excellent as always.