30 months on from Bonzai’s first (Airwave-helmed) ‘Progressive Sessions’, Belgium’s finest sure-footedly arrive at their sixth ‘In The Mix’. Coincidence or otherwise, that’s the same time frame in which its helmsman Gai Barone has marched from respected dark sonic matter merchant to lightning rod for the next coming of Deep.
Making professional strides (“few gained more career ground in 2017” considered DJ Mag last month) through tracks like ‘Shiny’ and ‘There’s A Lady’, his DJ performances have become evermore a clubbing-year essential.
With a zeitgeist-like timing, Bonzai have handed the I.T.M. mix-reins to this electronic music savant. The Italian’s first solo-mixed release, it puts his singular take on electronic music – one more complex and meticulous in character – into tack-sharp focus.
Be you trance, progressive or house, if the name ‘Gai Barone’ didn’t pass your lips in 2017, well better bet it will this year! Why? Well, foremost, his intrinsic sound is at a tipping point in 2018.
“From the top down, everyone’s saying it… says the Italian. “This will be the year of Deep. You only have to look at the direction of arena stages, club line-ups, label output, radio playlists, etc to see where that’s coming from. It’s just one of the reasons I’m so thrilled to be bringing this release in the earliest months of the most promising of electronic music years.”
Barone ascension has come with many benefits, not least establishing him as a tastemaker/barometer of all matters deep. The Go-To Gai (if you will!) for producers wishing to test the mettle of their latest wares, it has given Barone’s unparalleled pick of new material for the album.
His mix criterion is simple: “music of substance, not simplicity. Some find it easier to corral the music I play into the ‘deep trance’ bracket, which I do understand. We live in a world of classification. I do feel there’s significantly more range to it though. Barone tends to find adjectives rather than genres/sub genres most useful when summing his sound. “Moving”, “exacting” “intricate”, “atmospheric” – these are a few of the words he uses to describe what happens throughout ‘006’s runtime. “Less predictable” is another. “You’re not going to hear one harmonic trancer or deep-prog number after another, after another here. The mixes are designed as end-to-end listens. What happens in between is not always going to be what’s expected”.
His “substance not simplicity” mandate rings true throughout Part 1. Gai’s trademark ‘portrait-style’ compiling (each track at once standing out, yet working coherently in the album’s framework) delivers Kymatik’s ‘Knights of the Jaguar’ channeling ‘La Bataeu Ivre, the chugging ‘Inversion’ from Chris Cargo, TR20’s hardier ‘Perception Management’ and the cooler frisson of ‘Behind’ from newcomers Revolutionary Blocks. The mix concludes with Andromedha’s revision of York & Ramon (Hardfloor) Zenker’s ‘China Girl’.
His own music naturally plays a key role in the threading of both mixes. New cuts ‘Tanita’ and ‘Cantica’ both debuts within the first half. ‘Something Between Us’ and ‘The Bloop’ meanwhile etch waypoints in the second. Interlaced between are Oovation’s synth-warping ‘Solar’, ‘The Passenger’ from Montenegro’s AudioStorm, Yuriy From Russia’s elegiac ‘Black Lagoon’ and the drop-side intensity of ‘Dust of Light’ c/o Mark Found. The release plays out with the epic-in-scope, first time teaming of Solarstone & John 00 Fleming with ‘Hemispheres’
A 20/20 insight into his deep house thru harmonic trance range, you can order Gai Barone – In The Mix 006 – Progressive Sessions here.
Radio DEEA listened to this:
We are thrilled to have listened to Gai Barone’s latest work. The “In the Mix 006” Progressive Sessions is a combo of vibrating and exquisite sounds, a roller-coaster that takes you from the deepest of deeps and lifts you up into the heaven of trance and progressive.
The way the artist combined the tracks shows an enormous dedication to what music feels like for each individual. We actually dared some of our team members to listen to the album and have a say about it. Some of them thought it took them on a SF-ish journey through sound, some of them invoke the sound of the woods and water, but each and every one of them loved the final result.
Sometimes soft, sometimes harsh, sometimes just in-between, Barone manages to bring an homage to music through this splendid collection of intense tracks.
A twirl of synths and powerful beats that stand the test of what great music should sound like.
Gai Barone – In The Mix 006
Part 1
01° Gai Barone – Tanita (Intro Mix) (Afterglow)
02° Tannura – Halfway (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
03° Gai Barone – Cantica (Gai Is Coming To Town Remix) (Afterglow)
04° Kymatik – La Bataeu Ivre (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
05° Lunar Park – Tantra (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
06° Chris Cargo – Inversion (Original Mix) (Bonzai)
07° Danito & Athina – City Lights (Stereo Underground Remix) (Crossfrontier Audio)
08° Morttagua & Gaby Endo – Urania (Gai Barone Depth Mode Remix) Uplifting Music)
09° Blufeld – Tristful Sleeper (Original Mix) (Bonzai)
10° TR20 – Perception Management (Original Mix) (Lowbit Records)
11° Revolutionary Blocks – Behind (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
12° Quadran featuring Tasha – Unlovable (Nico Parisi Instrumental Remix) (Bonzai)
1° York & Ramon Zenker – China Girl (Andromedha Remix) Black Hole Recordings)
Part 2
01° Matan Caspi – Shiny Coral Reefs (Alex Vidal Remix) (Bonzai)
02° Coyu featuring Thomas Gandey – 1 + 1 (Gerd Janson Arp Mix) (Suara Music)
03° Antidote – What Time Is Love (Stan Kolev Remix) (Bonzai)
04° AudioStorm – The Passenger (Original Mix) (Bonzai)
05° Gai Barone – Something Between Us (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
06° Oovation – Solar (Michael A Remix) (The Mango Alley)
07° Gabriel West & Ricardo Piedra – Devon (Original Mix) (Bonzai)
08° Yuriy From Russia – Black Lagoon (Original Mix) (Black Hole Recordings)
09° Milla Nelson – Beautiful Beast (Original Mix) Dominic Manns)
10° Mark Found – Dust of Light (Original Mix) (Mark Found)
11° Gai Barone – The Bloop (Original Mix) (Afterglow)
12° Basil O’Glue – The Mars Project (Original Mix) (JOOF Recordings)
13° Solarstone & John 00 Fleming – Hemispheres (Original Mix) (Black Hole Recordings)
