Various - DMC Technics World DJ Championship 2001 FLAC

The box artwork here is double-sided - the front gives this as the "2001 World DJ Championship" featuring "The History of DMC World Champions" while the back has it the other way around: the History featuring the 2001 Champs. This "double A-side" billing is entirely justified as you get two great features on the DVD.

The first feature gives you all the competition action from the World Championships final in 2001, with some of the most talented DJs from around the world, winners of national heats from fourteen countries across four continents. The skills on display are awesome - their hands a blur of motion across the vinyl, faders and other controls - crafting fast and complex rhythms and performing complicated crossfader manipulations. It's interesting to see them using stickers not just to mark exact cue points but also to create custom locked grooves and to produce noise effects as the needle trips over them.

Plus One delivers an incredible competition-winning set, taking the stylus-abuse thing to the next level - not only tapping the raised headshell like a Morse code key but even rubbing the needle radially across a wide run-out groove to produce yet more abstract sound effects. As a Brit myself it's great to watch a DJ from the UK win for the first time in over a decade, especially since I saw him take the national title in person earlier in 2001.

Props also to Kentaro who ends his set with his "Jah Jaka" segment, cutting a stickered record of electric guitar tones to make an insanely rockin' riff so catchy that I find myself humming it sometimes; it's no surprise that he went on to take the world title the following year. I must also mention Coki who ends up playing alongside a small radio-controlled doll scratching on the other deck!

I have to admit that I bought this DVD primarily for the second feature though. The retrospective of World Championship winning sets from 1987 through to 2001 is a fascinating document of the evolution of the turntablist's art. In the earlier sets there's more of an emphasis on using different body parts or objects to manipulate the vinyl and crossfader (nose, foot, elbow, pool cue, etc!) while in the later years the focus is on ever more intricate and innovative techniques. However, that said, you still see Ca$h Money and Cutmaster Swift doing some impressively quick beat-juggling segments back in the 80's and, conversely, Craze still throws in a little old skool behind-the-back or under-the-leg fader action in all three of his title-winning routines ten years later.

My four personal highlights are: DJ David ending his 1991 set by doing a handglide on one of the turntables while the other - at a safe distance - plays the Jungle Bros 'I'll House You' ("round and round and round"); A Trak taking the title aged only 15; Cutmaster Swift spending twenty seconds at the start of his set just dancing like a nutter (much to the delight of the crowd) while the amen of Mantronix 'King of the Beats' drops over Alyson Williams 'Sleep Talk' and finally DJ Noize composing a sentence using four chunks of the rap on Method Man & Redman 'How High' inviting the previous year's champion (by name) to suck his dick, whilst holding the tempo of the beats, and then following this with some wonderfully musical tweak scratches over Newcleus 'Jam On Revenge'.

It's a pity there's no footage from the '85 and '86 finals (also one of the Dream Team's sets is absent) but that's a minor complaint. This three-hour DVD is a fantastic showcase of some astounding skillz and if you only buy one video of turntablists in action it should be this one.