Filo & Peri's debut Crowd Control: Live From Wet Grooves, Las Vegas, is, in short, balls to the wall techno/electro house easing into tribal jams with plenty of pop pleasures and some outright great finds in between. Some of the tracks miss some excellent compositional opportunities but it's the kind of thing you generally don't notice when you're dancing your ass off.
Consider Lys & Gigi's remix of Filo & Peri's own track vs Serge Devant, "Electrick Funk." It's full of energy and is a kickin' jam but it's a bit of a tease with the initial electro bassline seeming to be hinting at something better around the corner but just keeps repeating itself over and over. Other examples are Rich's Filthy mix of Alex Gaudino's "Reaction" and Filo & Peri's "Wetgroovin'," that are both wonderful for a flash (the former, a minute and a half and the latter, under three minutes) and then are promptly pulled out of the mix, leaving you starving for more. Other almost great tracks are Claudio Bertorelli's mix of Filo & Peri's "Pocket Pimps" and Filo & Peri vs. Nucvise "Jiggle It."
But not all the tracks get you sexed up with no payoff. Channel 88's "The Groove is Taking Over", has an electro bassline that is fleshed out and is possibly the standout track of the mix.
At times the "guilty pleasures" are welcome, and other times they get a little irritating, which in many ways speaks about the particular mixes. Filo & Peri's own mix of the Doobie Brothers' "Long Train Runnin'" and Stef Vrolijk's remix of MV's cover of Styx's "Mr. Roboto" are top shelf additions, whereas the cover of INXS's "Need You Tonight" is mainly lame because of the anemic vocalist sounds like he might faint if Michael Hutchence (may he rest in peace) were to exhale in his general direction. Nick Terranova's "Tribal F*ck" is all the stale recipes of "Hey, let's make a track with a hot sounding girl talking dirty!" and no "Hey, let's write a kick ass melody!"
In the end, Filo & Peri present on disk a good club night experience.
