Dan Curtin - Beat Fiend

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  • Dan Curtin is a techno lifer, making his name in the early '90s in the production arena from his homebase of Cleveland, Ohio. Nowadays, Curtin resides in Berlin—like anyone trying to make a living out of the genre—and his music sounds like it. Refined, restrained and assured, it's the sound of a producer at the top of his game—more than a decade-and-a-half after he began making tracks. "Beat Fiend" moves smoothly across its seven minute length, draping melodic percussion against a variety of backdrops—a lolling synth phrase here, a man telling us something about the beat there. The focus here, though, is on the percussion: Curtin's congas are bright and upbeat, far away from the sort of dullard deep house that they've been soundtracking so much of late. This is light and engaging tech house, pure and simple. "Amphibian" draws from the same sonic well, with a harder beat, but no less insistent harmonic component pumping away in the background. It's not as immediate as its predecessor, but give it enough time and it'll worm its way into your brain. (That has a lot to do with the annoyingly effected dolphin voice that reaches out every so often.) Curtin has a discography full of these types of tracks—songs that finally hit on the 14th listen. Give this one enough chances and it'll happen to you too.
  • Tracklist
      A Beat Fiend B Amphibian
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