- Here's one of dance music's dirty little secrets: most of the tracks that stretch toward ten minutes and beyond don't really need to be that long. It's one thing to indulge an idea, a feeling or a sound—another to make that things manifest themselves in new, interesting ways over a lengthy span, even if you hide behind the veil of "it's intended for long mixes."
That isn't an issue with "Pizza," the title track of Cambridge producer Semtek's new EP on his own Don't Be Afraid label. "Pizza" lasts nearly 11 minutes, but it's one of those rare house tracks that seems to be evolving in front of your ears, even as it follows a familiar enough structure. The big, swaddling synth chords help to even out the skittering pulse they vault over, just as the twitching bassline keeps things jumping beneath. That's plenty of push-pull as is, but Semtek—a sometime event reviewer for RA—keeps finding new corners to explore. It's not perfect, but it's engrossing, which isn't something you can say of too many tracks right now, never mind ones that seem as improvisatory as this one often does.
"Goons" reverses the tenses some: here the beat is straighter, with some percussive syncopation and a little synth judder to goose it. It's more a line than an image, though. Roth does well to enlist Detroit's DJ 3000 for a "Pizza" remix. His bright-toned synth lines dart rather than scatter, setting up a jaunty organ that harks back to Stax or Trojan and commingles easily with the digital gleam surrounding it.
Tracklist01. Pizza
02. Goons
03. Pizza (DJ 3000 Remix)