XL Recordings:
"It started life as a session recorded for Mary Anne Hobb's Breezeblock segment on Radio One, and had since evolved into a densely-packed fifty-minute trip through the sounds that have influenced Liam's music, taking in raw hip-hop, edgy rock and a fine selection of prime old-school beats. He delves deep into his record box, packing more than 50 tracks into the 50 minute mix, cutting, scratching and crossfading in a rough style that owes as much to legendary turntable maestros Double D and Steinski as it does to current DJ demons like Invizibl Skratch Piklz and Rob Swift. It's an exhilarating journey, and one of the finest mix albums to hit the racks to date. "

Comments:
The album is a DJ mix album, done solely by Liam Howlett of The Prodigy. Originally it was a show "Breezeblock" on Radio 1 in England. After the Breezeblock show Liam worked on the mix more so it could be released as an actual "album. " Because of copyright problems, Liam could not release the entire Breezeblock set, so it had to be revised. Some of the samples and songs had to be removed.

Originally the CD was to contain many more tracks than the final version. Tracks such as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles had to be removed before the final printing because Apple Recordings does not allow any Beatles song to be sampled by anyone except Apple. Paul McCartney, who wrote Sgt. Pepper, actually liked the idea of sampling the song and encouraged the idea. A spokesman for Liam Howlett said, ”The record sounded great in there and we were going to include it on the commercial release of the record, but Apple wouldn’t grant us permission to licence the track.” Apple said the decision was ”nothing personal” against The Prodigy. The sample has now been replaced by one from "Been Caught Stealing" by US rock band, Jane’s Addiction. Anyway the record is great but sounds a bit of a mess sometimes, due to no song lasting longer than about a minute, though it works in places. By the way the album name comes from the name of Liam's studio "Dirtchamber".

"It is a collection of Liam Howlett's favorite hip hop and funk tracks cut, pasted and mixed into the most thrilling shape since God mixed the DNA for Christy Turlington. 5/5" - Muzik

"The best compilation/mix album of the year" - Flipside magazine

"'The Dirtchamber Sessions' is the most purely enjoyable, rambunctious 50 minutes of music I've heard in years. A piledriving, relentless, spine-tingling meld of classic hip hop, Frankie Bones' early breakbeats, indie, rock'n'roll and thrill-packed fusions like Bomb the Bass's 'Bug Powder Dust' and the Prod's own 'Poison'. " - Time Out

"Not a Prodigy album at all but, rather, a solo project by leader Liam Howlett. Apparently nostalgic for his days as a DJ in hip hop band Cut To Kill, he's assembled a mix CD of snippets of his favourite tunes. He's gone as far back as the Sex Pistols' New York, and calls on most major dance acts, including his nemeses the Beastie Boys (to irk them, perhaps, he's also included the "Smack my bitch up" sample over which they fell out). There are unexpected choices, too, like The Charlatans and Jane's Addiction. Scratching and cross-fading feverishly, Howlett shoehorns 50 tracks into 50 minutes, and therein lies the problem: what's the point, other than to show off his mixing skills?" - Caroline Sullivan / Guardian