Rico Casazza - Summer Dream EP

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  • It's fair to say Rico Casazza isn't someone I'm terribly familiar with. Aside from spotting his name on the odd Archipel release (but nevertheless failing to fork out), I've had all but zero contact with his work. Which is my loss, because if this EP is anything to go by, he's a very good producer indeed. Title track "Summer Dream" is a gorgeous piece of ambling tech house—neither prosaically minimal nor superficially deep—and about as befitting of its title as is conceivable. Rolling along at a healthy 127 BPM, it's got plenty of jack (this is a "groover" if ever I heard one), but it's also beguilingly calm, blessed with a kind of inner stillness that places it at a considerable remove to the majority of club-oriented summer fodder currently clogging up Beatport's virtual aisles. Built out of muffled kicks, skittering hats, fuzzy bass and bittersweet melodies (not to mention some wonderfully visceral bursts of static), it's a texturally rich and structurally lucid piece of music—each part seemingly at ease with itself and its surroundings—and laced with a kind of wide-eyed innocence that's all too frequently lost in today's hyperactive market. Over on the "flip" (this is a digital-only release), label boss Let's Go Outside takes things in a tougher, more metallic direction, wringing out the original's boozy swagger and replacing it with an ice cold 4/4 snap the likes of which Radio Slave so successfully trades in. It works a treat—the thing fairly gallops along—and makes for a perfect tonic to the A-side's meandering charms.
  • Tracklist
      01. Summer Dream 02. Summer Dream (Let's Go Outside Version)
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