Customer Reviews

Essential Mix

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Netherlands' Sander Kleinenberg has emerged over the past couple of years as a rising star in the world of progressive dance music, both as a producer and a dj. His Global Underground "NuBreed" two-disc set from last year was truly a triumph, and not long ago he was recognized in Great Britain for having crafted the best Radio One "Essential Mix" set for the year 2001.

These musical skills are well in evidence in Kleinenberg's new one disc release, "Essential Mix," the latest in a series released by Warner designed to showcase outstanding young dj's. Although progressive dance music gets little recognition in this country, Warner actually seems to be making some effort to promote this disc, which is excellent from start to finish.

Although Kleinenberg has been known for trancey material like "My Lexicon," here the mood is definitely progressive house-oriented and strongly percussive. Particuarly in the first part of the mix, the tracks tend to be beat-heavy, even tribal, with virtually no melody and endowed with a generous dose of spoken vocal loops. People familiar with Peace Division will recognize this style, which includes PD's own "Seriously Twisted." By the fifth track, "Burnin' Up," performed by the venerable Funky Green Dogs (remember "Fired Up?"), the sound moves a bit more melodic (but just a bit), yet remains intensely percussive and deep.

A good dj knows to vary the pace and style within a set at least a bit, and Kleinenberg does this skillfully by including the Jacked High remix of Blackwatch and Greed's "Gentle Rain," which features a wistful female vocal. The deep, even dark progressive groove picks then up again, however, with Kleinenberg's own storming remix of Hedi's "Revolt." Overall, the latter portion of the disc, featuring work by progressive stalwarts DJ Remy and Redanka, is more trancey and high-energy, as befits the "peaking" portion of a mix intended for a dance club environment.

Overall, Kleinenberg's track selection and sequencing pack a huge wallop, and his mixing is impeccable. The only flaw I can perceive here is that it almost seems as though he is trying to pack the tracks too closely together at times, perhaps trying to include a disc and one-half's worth of material within a single disc. This renders the pacing just a tad claustophobic. In light of the overall quality of the disc, however, this really is but a minor issue. Fans of deep, rhythmic progressive dance music owe it to themselves to pick up this "Essential Mix."

With the release of his GU Nubreed follow-up "Essential Mix" CD, Kleinenberg proves he is indeed, a force to be reckoned with in the ever growing, ever changing universe of progressive house. In case anyone hadn't noticed, tribal house is the "progressive" word du jour.

Kleinenberg truly has a finger on the pulse of the current electronic dance movement that is slowly but surely spreading the globe Like Mutiny UK & Satoshi Tomiie's respective, infectious virus'. The mix is a dark and swirling percussive maelstrom that builds like a thunderstorm and closes with elegant progressive trance - a DEFINITE journey.

Standout tracks include the deranged tribal funk of Peace Division's "Seriously Twisted", KAO's sonic granite "Stonegroove" and the Thomas & Noble electro soundscape of "Timeflies" which closes the CD amid the opening vocal tracks from Lexicon Avenue's haunting "From Dusk til Dawn."

For Fans of Satoshi Tomiie, Creamer and K, Digweed and the like, "Essential Mix" is as must for any Progressive house collection. Kleinenberg's track selection and mix prowess are absolutely flawless in their arrangement and subsequent execution.

If Kleinenberg's mix is any gauge of sounds yet to come in 2002, Progressive House is in for quite a journey, indeed.

This mix album is almost perfect for my taste. I would have preferred a bit more vocals, but Sander Kleinenberg sure knows how to build up an impressive playlist... If you liked Global Underground 21 - Deep Dish in Moscow, then you should love this album. The deep cool sound is very similar.

Sander Kleinenberg gives you a quality mix...The mix begins very dark and tribal and ends a little more trancy...A must have for progressive minded people!!

I bought this mix with love and passion for Sander's abliity to pick out unbelivable progressive sounds and mix them unbelivably. I've bought all his cds and have enjoyed listening to all of them, especially his GU Nubreed and Mixmag 2000 mix. I've seem him live at clubs twice and every time he does the best job of throwing down heart throbing progressive and building the crowd into and a dance floor frenzy that cheers with every needle drop. And so I had the upmost joy in going out opening day of his new cd release and buy it, and let me tell ya this mix does it for me. Starting of with voices of Lexicon Ave.,,,to the dark progressive at the end....this mix is unique and lively. Its goes through opening mellow groovey precussion house into dark kinda Digweed style house especially with the track Kao_Stonegroove, then moves to a female vocal track, then ending with a 4 song mix is mello dark progressive. The mixing is wonderfully and emotionaly charged with perfact dropping basslines and pinching hi-hats, he truely is the master. And overall this is a great mix cd,,,,only reason im giving it 4 stars is because i think he could have done better with the ending of the cd <like the last 3 tracks>...Sander should have blown it up alittle more at the end rather than ending with mellow progressive,,<<<thats for the begining of the album>>>>

This talented Dutchman gives people the surprise only a limited number of DJ's are capable of. Try it if you are wondering who can compare Deep Dish. So bad I miss his Chicago debut.

There are maybe one or two standout tracks on this mix. Nothing to write home about. I've listened to it 5 times through so far and I can't remember much about it other than I'm not enthused to put it on again.

Great CD. A little redundant in the beginning, but just wait till you get to Klinkenberg's remix. That is the dopest. Flawless mixes. Kleinenberg is one of the best.

I had to check out some of Sander Kleinenberg's commercial releases on labels other than Global Underground and Renaissance. I never liked his hard techno and progressive trance sets, but after listening to disc 1 of his Nubreed album and both discs of Renaissance Presents Everybody I wanted to find more releases where he focuses primarily on mixing tracks from house genres.

This album is no where near the caliber of sets featured on the three discs mentioned above. Sure the set falls under a progressive house album, but it has the feel of his live sets where he mixes a lot of hard progressive trance tracks that tend lack of depth. Very mediocre track selection on this one.

3/5 stars for this effort.

This mix is okay. Not as progressive as other Sander K releases. The track selection isn't all that great. Comando Heaven is probably the best track.