Night and Naught
Ranking amongst DJ Magazine’s “Top 100 Artists”, Ryan Raddon, better known on stage as Kaskade, dishes out a new mix CD and original album. This deft DJ churns out chart topping hit with surprising ease in between his numerous and powerful live performances at various festivals and clubs. On Bring the Night , we hear Kaskade leaving his trademark mixing on a variety of artists, making for a playfully original sound. With Strobelight Seduction, Kaskade’s fifth studio album, he teams up with Canadian house DJ Deadmau5 on a few tracks to create a handful of deep house tunes.
Introducing us to Bring the Night is Axwell’s “I Found U”, a throwback track with beats that are reminiscent of disco. This paves the way for the entire album, which has a retro feel while showcasing Kaskade’s diversity of mixing and synth play. Songs like Joslyn’s “Funk 2 Night” include rhythmic piano work that compliments the added trance synth lines all to soul inspired vocals while tracks like the mix of Nelly Furtado’s “All Good Things (Come to an End)” combine upbeat house rhythms with dramatic trance breaks to create an incredibly danceable song. Closing the album is Summer of Space’s “Hearts Reaction”, where we hear smooth and steady mixing alongside electronic resonance to make for the perfect ending to a remarkable night.
Weighing in at a whopping 15 tracks and over 75 minutes in length, Bring the Night delivers quality soul drenched dance tunes track for track. Including hits from your favorite artists and some you probably didn’t know, the whole mix flows swimmingly. Creating a funk/house hybrid successfully, this album is can be used for instant dance floor saturation. This mix CD is well worth your dollar.
“Move for Me” opens Strobelight Seduction, a song featuring Deadmau5 and vocalist Haley Gibby, with progressive trace beats that quickly crescendo until we hear the soothing voice of Gibby, “Another night out, another dance floor”. The backbeat waxes and wanes throughout the song alongside rhythm synth lines. The remixed track “I Remember”, also featured on Deadmau5’ Random Album Title, showcases clever keyboard builds and well positioned synth breaks. The album goes back and forth from progressive house, like the song “Step One Two”, and progressive trance stylings, like on “Pose”making it a bit inconsistant as a whole. The last track on Strobelight Seduction is “Your Love is Black”, which sounds more like a downtempo R&B tune with acoustic guitar than anything else.
The progressive electronic music scene is a broad battlefield in which Strobelight Seduction can’t seem to find its way to the fight. You won’t find much innovation here, but rather a charming collection of trance and house electronica. Strobelight Seduction simply fails to capture the powerful emotion conveyed in Kaskade’s live performances and DJ sets, and that key asset leaves this album inadequately hallow.
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