There’s a reason why dance music producers release records under myriad aliases. Artists like, say, Detroit’s Carl Craig, release sometimes disparate, but equally accomplished tracks under different pseudonyms because the DJ-driven dance world counts on certain names to deliver specific styles. Todd Terry, for instance, is the world’s most accomplished remixer, having twiddled knobs on tracks by everyone Everything But the Girl to Madonna and a host of underground house classics. So it’s a ballsy, iconoclastic move for Terry to step out of his house-remixer-for-hire mode to make this stellar debut full-length, of everything-but-the-house-remixer dance music.
From the opening hardstep jungle gem "Blackout," with its icy-cool rumble and shaken-not-stirred drums, you wonder why Terry hasn’t put down his meal ticket house wanking earlier. Not to dis T-man’s house work — it has defined the genre. But on tracks like "Let It Ride," with its brilliant (as in "clever" and as in "shiny") breakdown melody and phenomenal genre-smashing greatness, Terry proves himself the Peter Gabriel of electronica (hey, "Todzilla" does sound a little like "Sledgehammer" after all), able to mesh pop and multigenre (well, for dance music) sensibilities so well you don’t care what the hell he’s doing or what he’s mashing — you just want to hear more. Like Resolutions’ closing track says, "It’s All Good." F’real.
