- The ideal of the mix CD is to put you in the room in full surround. The first volume of the new mix series Welcome To My Club, helmed by the Netherlands' Jeroen Verheij, AKA Secret Cinema, achieves this pretty well. The zinging synths on Ahmet Sisman's "Baze"—lighting director's testing out some lasers, I see. The way the bassline curves on Oculus' "Awake"—there's the cabinet, directly to my front-left.The clackety-misty tone of the keyboard rustling through the Kuba Sojka remix of Shinsuke Matsumoto's "Lantern," near the disc's end? That's the exit sign not glowing but beaming red through faint outer light. The party is going to continue on even if you aren't.
The same applies to Big Bully's "Nightflight," the second track, which goes for some obvious big-room touches: deep, growling, altered voice as narrator rather than hook-deliverer, that climaxes with, "Everybody, get up on your feet." It doesn't feel weird to be arguing for the DJ's art of inducing communal pleasure when an object that's meant to be heard at home is as boisterous as this is.
Welcome To My Club slips between styles liberally without making a fuss about it. The dominant sound is fizzy, techy, bubbling: Norm & Jochen Pash's "Watching You" Andreas Saag's bright "Jazz Lapse," Egbert's bounding "Yourself." But Oculus' "Awake" is more or less a relatively no-frills trance track; that sine-tone bassline, that high-pitched flutter that turns into a cymbal crash, that popping-corn synth motif. Verheij was behind Meng Syndicate's all-time '92 classic "Sonar System," so hard machine throb that sets your brain to stun is something he obviously knows well. Welcome To My Club sees him work at making connections between all of the above, but in fact, it doesn't sound like work at all.
Tracklist 01. Jamie Lloyd - When Good Oompa Loompa's Turn Bad
02. Big Bully - Nightflight
03. Ahmet Sisman - Baze
04. Steve Parker - Mexhilhao (Handycraft Remix)
05. DJ Sodeyama - Realthing
06. Norm & Jochen Pash - Watching You (Norman Zube Remix)
07. Andreas Saag - Jazz Lapse
08. Egbert - Yourself
09. Jewel Kid - Break My Heart (Masi & Mello Remix)
10. Christopher Benjamin - Drop Down Pass Out
11. Psycatron - Is What It Is (So It Is Remix)
12. Peter Horrevorts - Bloody Hands (Marc Marzenit Remix)
13. Cyro - Afrodisiac (Dirty Disorder Remix)
14. Tim Deluxe - When We Come To It
15. Oculus - Awake
16. Jakiro - Fountain Trip
17. Egbert - Haasten
18. Itamar Sagi - One Million Oaks
19. Secret Cinema - Glad Chord
20. Shinsuke Matsumoto - Lantern (Kuba Sojka Remix)