Progressive house is not to everyone’s tastes. Too surly, too slow, too subtle, too long, too – well, too progressive. Based around the subgenres of house, techno, trance and breaks, music by the likes of Gui Boratto, Pole Petersky and Trafik are a teasing, testing affair, as likely to build you up as knock you down and often peaking after so lengthy an introduction that many of us will have already got the taxi back to the flat, had our cornflakes, read yesterday’s paper, cued up the messages on the answer-phone and texted our mates on an update back at the club. But for those of you who have yet to still experience sex beyond the quick trouser poke on the way back from the Multiplex, there is such a thing as controlling ejaculation. Progressive house offers a way of harnessing the usual clumsy, thrusting sexual energy of your average 12 minuter by delaying the dramatic burst. It’s a slow-release thing, a steady-cam thing leading to a climax of starry, unearthly proportions. And taking you through your paces this time, is South America’s own top super-star DJ, Hernan Cattaneo following up his reasonably successful Master Series with ‘Sequential’ – a lush and protracted stream of mixes incorporating some of the finest creative forces around: Bushwacka, Tommyboy & Mannel, Paolo Mojo, Phonique, Mikael Delta, Trisco, Marco Bailey, Eddie F, Dan Welton amongst them.
It’s not outright progressive by any means, but should you be of a quick, impulsive nature it should at least slow you down.
Having risen to heady orbits of the international DJ circuit and earning a number 7 slot on DJ Magazine’s last Top 100 DJs poll, Cattaneo’s third compilation for Renaissance forces a new trajectory with one disc of funk and gently trailing latin, and a second disc of fruitier, more diverse, mish-mashing – faintly electro – allsorts topped and tailed by a Hernan’s remix of Phonique feat. Erland Oye, ‘For The Time Being’.
Look out for cover art from photographer John Ross, famous for his images of Kylie, The Manic Street Preachers and Deep Dish.