Thrive (Red)
2005
Renaissance - The Masters Series: Hernan Cattaneo Volume 2
About This Album
The first disc in Hernán Cattáneo's two-CD Renaissance: The Master Series, Vol. 2 starts so slowly it's bound to have the clubbiest of kids saying "boring." Their loss, because the DJ is spinning some of the most soothing and rich-tasting progressive house available. Cattáneo loves subdued tracks and he's an ace at finding them. Delays' "Lost in a Melody" could make the paint melt off the wall, while Pole Folder's "Salvation on Slavery Sins" is rich with atmosphere. Come Patrick Turner and Chris J's "Machine Life," things pick up and threaten to become a party, but Cattáneo's such a smooth mixer you'll have to backtrack to figure out when the transition from mellow to up-tempo happened. Disc two gets going much faster, but smooth and spacy is still the rule, with most tracks falling under the heading of "nocturnal." Micah's "Come From" is a dreamy treat that works in a bit of nu-breaks, a style Cattáneo is becoming quite the fan of, judging from all the whip-crack beats on the second half of disc two. It would have been nice if he would have taken out at least one of the dramatic bridges of the songs on disc two, since all this theatrical stopping and starting gets to be tedious outside of a club. Course it's hard to go wrong ending with Hybrid and Underworld, and the way Cattáneo mixes the two is a master's thesis in tension building. The moody disc one is the reason to check the set and far and away the "active listening" portion, but disc two has enough of that magic Cattáneo blending to say this is an overall success. ~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11 and 12)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 10)

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