Is there more than Calabria?
If you don’t know where one of the most slammin’ anthems of the year 2007, “Calabria”, came from, well these guys are it. The brother-duo of Johannes Torpe and Rune “RK” Reilly Kolsch (how can they be “brothers” with such different stage names?) are Enur, and Raggatronic, their recently released first feature-length album, [Sequence/ARTI FARTI Records] is what we’re talkin’ bout, and this album IS a party so, “Let’s get things started/Now that you got me here/Lets go and act re-tarded/What’s it gonna be, gonna be?”
A variety of sounds
With cuts so harmoniously diverse that they are cohesive, you can even choose the wrong song and make it work as I found out recently, during my radio show when I hit the wrong cut (“Ucci Ucci”) and did a double-take as I closed the mic thinking I had loaded the wrong CD. I hit the “next” arrow button and the song I had originally wanted play, “Gwann”, came in without a long intro and on-cue (one of the things I like about it). Listening later to the recorded show, it actually was a nice juxtaposition mix which probably went unnoticed by the layman or woman. All of which is to say, you can only have that happen when the material on the album is as multicultural as it is. Beenie Man also joins the mix with his addle reggae inside of “Whine” as an early complimentary catalyst.
I predict that the potential floor-filler/definite tune wedgie “Gwann” will spawn a few long remixed versions, and it should, partly because Natalie Storm, who of the rather similar sounding female leads herein, has the most descriptive clarity in her delivery as she shows her lover the door. “Bonfire” reprises the vocals of the [now] late Natasja who carried the ball on “Calabria”, but who tragically died in an auto accident in Jamaica in June of ’07. You can hear how Crystal Waters was able to segue so seamlessly into her role on the Alex Guadino remixed version, but also because these songs don’ take themselves too seriously. Next, “You Like The Way” makes use of the oft clichéd cadence of the “put your hands in the air” DJ crutch, to keep this serious soiree part of the album going strong.
The DJ influence
You can tell that these guys are DJ /Producers by the way the cuts are positioned and create this festive feeling. But before you know it, like when your lover has to leave, and you both go back to your individual worlds at the end of a fun weekend, its over. Except with Raggatronic it is easy to just press “play” and again plug into a four star fete!
Released September 9, 2008 on Sequence Records/
