- Berlin's trance trifecta team up for a surprisingly restrained EP focused on groove rather than adrenaline highs.
- Roza Terenzi, D. Tiffany and Byron Yeates are the holy trinity of today's fashionable trance sound. As producers, label owners and DJs, the three Berlin transplants have, arguably more than anyone else, made gated vocals, euphoric melodies and Global Underground mixes cool again. So seeing the three of them appear on a single 12-inch, it's easy to imagine an EP of the greatest hits. This is what it sounds like around the two-minute mark on Roza Terenzi's "Gush," as a chorus of angelic voices and a building drumline swells across the stereo. But just as quickly as they appear, those voices evaporate into a track that sits somewhere between UK techno, with its sinewy synth sound design, and modern minimal. splitstep, instead of a trance epic, is actually an EP of stripped-down tech house with only little dashes of progressive campiness on the edges.
This isn't a total surprise for Terenzi and D. Tiffany. As Tapestry Of Sound, the two play with garage and minimal, and Terenzi regularly collaborates with Gene On Earth. Yeates follows suit here, with a remix of "Gush" that takes it further into the realm of tech house. Gone are the short-circuiting synths, as the whole thing is combed over some swung drums to make it into a bubbling late night roller. His original "Cauldron Of Love" is just as slinky. He reprises some of his old tricks (check that breakdown at the 3:30 mark), but the end result is as much Butter Side Up as it is Radiant Love. If it wouldn't send the Discogs trolls into meltdown, I'd be tempted to call it (and "Prude Pride," with its wobbly and wet bassline) tech house trance.
Genre puns aside, splitstep is an important release for all three producers. It would be easy to imagine the three of them turning out a full EP of "Radiant Love-core" bangers. And that victory lap would have been rightly deserved. But instead the rio avoid caricature as they push each other to explore more introspective and nimble song structures and sounds. The fact that they sound just as good making tech house as progressive house speaks to their sheer command of dance music.
Tracklist01. Roza Terenzi - Gush
02. Roza Terenzi - Gush (Byron Yeates Remix)
03. Byron Yeates - Cauldron Of Chaos
04. Roza Terenzi & D. Tiffany - Prude Pride