What is often more refreshing about electronic music these days is when someone doesn’t try and reinvent the wheel, I mean let’s face it the wheel is pretty good already so giving it some stupid pretentious name like ‘minimal’, which ironically means basic and is where house music inevitably began, decades ago, doesn’t blind the educated. It’s fun for the fashionistas to revisit 70’s flare or 80’s neon trends but tragically it is admitting that we have simply run out of ideas, creativity is dead and we are trying to innovate by repeating the past. Everyone jumps on it, because it’s ‘cool’ but frankly it’s just bad music. So Baroque dumped Exploring Italy on my desk about a month ago, fortunately mixed by Slok and not some ‘cool’ basic house type. A month ago?! Shit man, pull your finger out! It’s not the bloody History Channel. You might think that and I apologize but in my defense when I received the single CD mix in the post I wasn’t expecting to fall in love or in fact even flirt with this CD for so long. Good music in this modern minefield of techno tripe is hard to come by, so I holidayed for a while.

The CD begins with “And The Night Moves On” which is a solid groovy house effort, setting things up nicely for the slightly more tech-tinged “Trouble” by Alex Costa and Phonic Lab’s “Vae Vistis”. Slok’s contribution to the mix is not limited to his DJ attributes, Alessandro’s production work has contributed to some progressive classics over the years and he lends a hand again with one of three Slok slices on the disc with ‘15^th Step’ – acid laden bass oozes funk. A slightly more tribal sound dominates the mid-mix with T Orlando’s “Sunbathing On The Moon” being the highlight with some wicked horns and nice techy percs. The undoubted standout for the mix is the transition from Flavio Vecchi & Marco Bertoni’s “Look At Me” into Slok’s “Exploring”. Exploring is electric wizardry and a killer mix. The CD rounds of with Slok’s Collaboration with Roberto Procaccini & Skype and the monstrous bass heavy “The Last Question” from Manuel De La Mare.

Flow and quality, all sourced from Alessandro’s native Italy – It’s a delight to hear good music again.

Plus you get an unmixed version to slam in your CDJ’s – good work Baroque!

9/10

Words: G.Johnson