Kaskade - Redux EP 002

Kaskade
Redux EP 002
2017
Spotify

Kaskade is one of those EDM DJs who seem to float above most of the bullshit. You don't hear about him getting into twitter wars or bullshitting on snapchat, just kind of plugging away doing shows and making music...slowly. This EP took about three years to come into existence but the wait really seemingly worth it. In ways it's funky, it's smooth and it feels like a direction that Calvin Harris almost went with Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1. Opening track "Nobody Like You" is a gentle glide into the record totally slick and almost without a big drop. The album as a whole doesn't flow like you'd like but that means that He is able to go really different directions with each track. The sound of Redux EP 002 is nice if not a bit dated, and it sort of flies along. I was a bit bummed out when I heard "Play With Me" which I can;t help but point off sounds like a rip off of Nora en Pure's "Diving With Whales" especially in the chorus. Kaskade clearly knows how to blend House elements into EDM but you can't shake that sense that this music feels like it would have had such a better reception a few years ago. "Gone" which features Late Night Alumni should be this really deep electro groove but it only scratches the surface and is pretty much one note throughout. Sun Soaked provides a much smoother remix of "Nobody Like You" as the albums closer but it still fails to capitalize on this really great build that it develops.

The thing is the tones and sounds on this record are fantastic. The music totally envelops you and creates this great listening environment, it just isn't all that good. He doesn't dive deep, He doesn't explore and instead is just content to sort of float around on the surface of these ideas. Quite honestly the Nora en Pure jack has me real shook. It just doesn't seem like theft is something in Kaskade's wheelhouse so perhaps it was some parallel thinking, but who knows. In the end however it's just an OK record, barely pushing the genre is one direction or another. It doesn't tarnish Kaskade's record but it also doesn't make it any better.

5.0 out of 10