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Andy Caldwell: "Obsession"

  Tobias

An original member of Soulstice, Caldwell blows all stops in this artist album to shake off the "Bay Area House" label he's been tagged with, and, being that that's a pretty easy thing to do (simply by being a little less disco-ey and fun-sounding), he has succeeded.

He's an LA guy anyway now, from the cursory reading I've done (emails screaming for a correction will be automatically routed to my Trash folder), and toward that we have "Fear My Pride," a hot-panted, serious-sounding chick-sung track that's a little bit Oakenfold and a little bit King Britt. Caldwell loves it when people mention that he flies around a lot and plays lots of shows but "somehow" finds the time – I'm assuming between reading Herman Melville novels forwards and backwards on those long flights – to write songs, so I'm hereby mentioning that, even if it could be interpreted as another way of saying "WARNING: These songs could be phoned-in."

They aren't, though, even if "Black Diamond Sky" has the woozy vibrato nonsense that Tiesto used while ruining his last record. The title track is surprisingly Depeche Mode-ish for something from a house DJ, while "It's Good" buddies up a Bodyrox vibe with some low-key rap slickness from Mr. V.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Andy Caldwell
Homepage: Uno Records