- Eduardo De La Calle and Cadenza make for a pretty surprising combination. De La Calle is a Spanish producer who's been at it for over a decade, and really hit his stride in the past two years with Analogue Solutions, a boutique label that made him a favorite among techno connoisseurs. As for Cadenza, well, you might say Luciano's once-great label lost its edge sometime around 2008—a lot changed between NSI's Max Binski and the Vagabundos residency at Pacha. In this sense the Precursors EP is an interesting development for both parties—a big label debut for De La Calle, and a return to bold curation for Cadenza.
The music on Precursors has clear hallmarks of both the artist and the label. It makes you realize how much De La Calle's style fits the framework of Villalobos-era Cadenza: all three songs are long, hypnotic grooves with muted kick drums and psychedelic semi-hooks. As in many Analogue Solutions tracks, linear, unchanging drum loops set the stage for more disorienting experiments in texture and sound design. They're DJ tools, maybe, but only for adventurous afterhours jocks. It's all very nice, but a bit bland compared to many of the excellent productions De La Calle has released in the last two years. Whether it signals a new direction for Cadenza or not remains to be seen.
Tracklist A Pink Water
B1 Madhusudhana
B2 The Sneak