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Part Of: Deco Catalog: RHM 045 Release Date: Buy Link: Tom Trago SoundCloud | Rush Hour SoundCloud | Website | Release Text: During his years in Amsterdam, a period in which his DJing career became an unstoppable juggernaut, Tom Trago was a regular visitor to Deco Sauna, a local institution that helped him decompress. ‘Deco’ is his sixth album and first for Rush Hour in a decade, recorded following an extended absence from dancefloors, as he cut back on DJ commitments to spend more time with his young family. When he returned to the studio, Trago struggled to get back into the groove, the desire to make dancefloor-focused music had temporarily deserted him , and he found himself drawn towards a desire to create ‘electronic lullabies’ that reflected his more pastoral environment that he lives in these days. Returning to the first synthesiser he ever bought on credit as a young DJ and wannabe producer, Tom Trago sets about navigating different musical routes without the confines of the club. Occasionally, old friends from Amsterdam would come to spend time in the studio – Tracey and Maxi Mill, both part of his Voyage Direct label roster, contributed to tracks on the album – but for the most part the production process was a solo endeavour of musical therapy for an artist determined to do things different after years making club cuts and sweat-soaked peak-time workouts. ‘Dark Oak’ is a colourful, sun-bright scene-setter co-produced by Tracey that layers tumbling lead lines, chiming melodic motifs and kaleidoscopic chords atop the gentlest of beat patterns. Maxi Mill lends a hand on ‘Central Park’, a deep and hypnotic excursion of rhythmic bleeps, minimalistic beats and layered melodies, and the summer sun-down rush of ‘Never Peace a Puzzle’, where kaleidoscopic synths, meandering solos and looped electronic stabs rush towards a dancefloor of the mind. Trago’s desire to create ‘electronic lullabies’ for his young daughter comes to the fore on ‘To Be Left Unlocked’, a hypnotising fusion of spacey electronic motifs, Steve Reich style (synth) marimba melodies and slow building intensity, while echoing Fender Rhodes riffs, synth-bass, glistening guitar notes and snappy post hip-hop beats of ‘When The Sky Is Watching Us’ doffs a cap to the producer’s roots as a bedroom beat-maker. Given the project’s genesis, it is fitting that Trago chose to conclude with ‘It Might be Forever’ and the digital only ‘Blue Dope’. Both feature sustained chords painted with vivid aural brush strokes blessed with a hint of a rhythmic pulse, a thread that subtly runs throughout Tom Trago’s most mature and musically rich album to date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Berlin House Music Submit Your Music | Store | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | SoundCloud |
