Mumbo Jumbo & DJ Kuma - “Kinda Weird”
Transient VII: Genetically Modified Trance
1999
Goa Trance / Psytrance
The story of the duo Mumbo Jumbo really begins with Transient Records, one of the UK's top-flight Goa and psytrance labels from the mid-90s to around the mid-aughts. One of the label's top acts from jump was a duo called Cosmosis, which shrunk to one member, Bill Halsey, also known as Bilbo Bagginz, in 1997. That same year, a guy by the name of Mitch Davies would start providing album art and designing layouts for some Goa and psy labels, one of which was Transient. Check out how cool some of Davies' artwork is:
Davies would contribute some design and layout work to Cosmosis' 1998 album, Synergy, before getting his first shot at production alongside Halsey the following year. They called themselves Mumbo Jumbo and released their first single, Kinda Weird (Monster Detunage Mix), which would then appear on Transient's label sampler, Transient VII: Genetically Modified Trance, the same year.
Just a little note here. On the Transient comp, "Kinda Weird" is listed as being by Mumbo Jumbo & DJ Kuma, but as it turns out, DJ Kuma is just an alias of Mitch Davies, so the track's full artist name is kinda redundant, as it were.
Anyway, "Kinda Weird" is well, kinda weird, at least for a Goa/psy tune. It's not a builder and there's really no peaks or valleys, but the track is just good and steady and has a subtle charm that comes from the unpredictable variety in its changing beats and strange sound effect leads. It has that pounding 4/4 kick drum and all that burbling acid that comes with your typical Goa and psy jams, but once it hits its stride, it just rides a plateau, incorporating almost seamless changes in percussion and bass, which allow for a flowing list of odd and sharp beeps, bleeps, stabs, zaps, zips, purrs, and other hard to describe sounds to do their thing.
Unique late 90s Goa/psy from this UK duo that lasted for a few years.
