One half of Trancenden, Tal Klein still releases work under the moniker. Peace Love Beats is a danceable collage of jazzed-up breakbeats. Klein can hold his own when compared to house and drum’n'bass DJs, and the album is at its best on tracks that evoke funky, old-school, ’70s cop show jams like the oh-so-smooth “The Fastbreaks of Champions” — a great joint by any standard. But Peace Love Beats is less consistently awesome then, say, Ben Wa’s Disciples of Retro-Tech and really can’t be compared to more experimental electronic artists like Aphex Twin, or mind-blowing cut-ups like DJ Shadow, DJ Qbert, and DJ Spooky. A fun party record, but not one that will get you thinking or feeling as much as the aforementioned artists. – Charles Spano
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