Dice Music: Cat. IAJ001T
Released February 2008

Track list:
A. 526 (Single Edit)
B. 526 (Stockholm Syndrome Remix)


IN BRIEF: Remember the name.

-nd every so often it just comes out of nowhere, with no known back history and nothing to lean upon. Nobody has heard of RJ Productions. Nobody knows who they/he/she are/is, nobody knows if they’ve made anything before and journalists across the land are looking at their decidedly meagre research findings and have been forced to conclude “Better just judge it as it comes, then”.

Big tracks. 526 certainly looks set to become one, not from a big producer or someone on a big DJ’s label getting a helping hand, but from someone’s bedroom. Receiving support from plenty of jocks, including some influential ones on BBC Radio One, this little drum ‘n bass gem has kicked up a billowing cloud of hype already and now the wind looks set to carry this eye-stinging nebula in your direction.

As ever, it’s difficult at first to see exactly why this track has succeeded where others have failed, although it is nice for a change to talk about a hyped track that lives up to its talk. 526 is a genuinely great piece of music, but the formula is so unbelievably simple: a fairly standard drum ‘n bass beat, a snatching of vocal sample… and sweeping piano and string movements that play up and down the hairs on the back of your neck.

And then it hits you. It just gives you an unbelievably warm glow inside to hear a piece of dance music in 2008 that actually wants to talk to you about feelings. As electronic club music is slowly but steadily emotionally asphyxiated and the most underfed, gaunt chord progressions treated as though they’re orchestral symphonies, the buzz behind 526 may just remind producers that some of us still want to hear melody in our music, want to hear tracks by producers who can actually play the fucking piano. And it could only have been a bedroom producer, divorced from the politics of the scene, who could undercut the entire current aesthetic movement of dance music and speak directly to the people out there on the floor. You just wouldn’t expect a bedroom producer to be able to do it quite this well.

Getting in on the act are Stockholm Syndrome, who provide the inevitable house remix. Their remix brings in the obligatory 4/4 kick and ups the funk. It’s a solid remix that reconstructs the track effectively, respecting the original idea while doing something different. Some of the beauty of the original is lost, but there was plenty to go around anyway. The only real complaint with the mixes on offer is the inclusion of an edit of the main track rather than the full version.

It’s high time dance music had its next Unfinished Sympathy or Clubbed To Death, and while 526 will inevitably struggle to fill such revered boots, it lives in the same spirit as these tracks. A piece of music for your soul. A superlative debut by a name to keep your eyes on. An early contender for single of the year. What the hell are you still sat there for?


Written by SYSTEM-J for TranceCritic.com. May not be reproduced or republished without the consent of TranceCritic.com. © All rights reserved.

Title: RJ Productions - 526
Category: Single, EP
Sub Category: Jungle
Reviewer: SYSTEM-J
Related Link: http://www.rj-productions.co.uk/
Added: February 7th 2008
Viewed: 1121 Times
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