Album Review: Eric Prydz - Eric Prydz Presents Pryda

For a while there, Eric Prydz could barely look in the general direction of a recording studio without turning out a dancefloor smasher under his Pryda moniker: gargantuan 15-minuter Aftermath was the bomb du jour of late 2005, Frankfurt presented more of the same in 2006, and by the time Pjanoo brought the pianos in 2008 the Pryda name was so bankable most were willing to forgive both the cheese-tastic Steve Winwood-sampling Call On Me and his fear of jumping on a plane to Australia to flaunt his wares.

Eric Prydz Presents Pryda serves not just as an introduction to the more progressive house-inclined sounds of the Swedish chart slayer but a reminder that the man still crafts a weekend weapon like few others. His modus operandi for the most part remain simple: drop a one- or two-note bass line over a simple house beat, layer with interlocking arpeggiated synths that build and build and build, remove kick drum for 32 bars, fade in swoosh build-up, BOOM! Just add lasers.

Disc one of this three-disc set is for the fanboys craving new material from the master, with Shadows already familiar from his live sets, Javlar and Hardrock Lausanne packing plenty of plutonium – and then there are the relentless chants of Allein (sampling obscure German pop act Polarkreis 18), as big and dumb and loved up as 'main room' gets without insulting your intelligence. The remaining two discs are DJ-mixed retrospectives, the aforementioned classics (sans Call On Me) rubbing shoulders with the Pryda remix of Paolo Mojo's 1983 among many more showing why so many clubbers hope Prydz eventually conquers his aerophobia to bring his EPIC live extravaganza down under.