Kaskade

As a club-hopping kid in Chicago in the 1980s, Ryan Raddon (aka Kaskade) was right there in the delivery room when house music was born. He adopted house as his musical home and subsequently moved to Salt Lake City, UT, helping to build the burgeoning house scene in that city in the early '90s, then eventually settling down in San Francisco. His third full-length album is a DJ mix follow-up to his previous, all-original effort, and it finds him making good use of the momentum from his hit single, "What I Say," delivering another solid set of unusually diverse dance music. Everything here fits more or less under the house umbrella, but many tracks push the rhythmic envelope in a pleasing way; while most tracks on this collection are more functional than fascinating, all are very functional and some are deeply engaging. The hands-down winner in this set is the gorgeous and insanely catchy "It's You, It's Me," featuring sweet and breathy vocals by Joslyn; singer Becky Williams makes a similarly lovely contribution on "Empty Streets." One or two other tracks, notably the tedious "The Light," are better suited for dancing than for listening, but hey, that shouldn't really be considered a complaint, should it? Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, All Music Guide