CD Reviews

2562 | Fever

When in Doubt (2011)

By MICHAEL C. WALSH | April 13, 2011

3.5 Stars

Dave Huismans must get easily bored with making music. In 2008, the Dutch dubstep producer imposed a track-per-night time limit on himself while crafting his Shortcuts LP. This time around, as 2562, he opted to make an album using only samples culled from late-'70s and early-'80s disco records in order to create something that sounds nothing like the source material. Well, he failed, because the first beat on opener "Winamp Melodrama" sounds as if it could be the jumping-off point for an up-tempo KC and the Sunshine Band joint. But that lasts only about a half a second before he runs it through an industrial-sized blender, taking that funky kick and warping it into the breakneck entry point for a drunken drum assault. Huismans has always fought the good fight in his attempt to fuse dubstep with comparably hard-nosed genres of electronic music, and Fever is his most fully realized effort yet. "This Is Hardcore" is an exercise in restraint, layering the detached piano loop with batshit lasers and reeling it back just before it wanders into womp territory. And "Brasil Deadwalker" is head-down, peak-time techno at its finest. But the best part of the release? Not a goddamn disco ball in sight.

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