Sander Kleinenberg

With chart topping remixes for artists as diverse as Justin Timberlake ("Rock Your Body"), Annie Lennox ('Wonderful"), and Junkie XL feat. Peter Tosh ("Don't Wake Up Policeman"), lauded mix CD releases for Nubreed and Essential, original productions that have been championed by the likes of Sasha and John Digweed, a new self-owned label, Little Mountain Records, and his own recently launched brand for Renaissance called Everybody, Sander's career has grown from steady burn to all-out inferno in a very short period of time. And Sander's done it the right way- he makes incredible music on his own, turns other artist's creations into club classics, and proceeds to work the dancefloor with equal focus on the brain and the booty. With his most recent and refreshingly original double mix album, Renaissance Presents Everybody: Sander Kleinenberg set for an October 21st North American release via Thrive Records, Sander is primed and ready to go from "next big thing" to "it."

Sander's Everybody brand grew out of his yearning to take clubland back to its roots, and away from the politics, sub-genre minutia, and, well, bullshit that were the unfortunate side effects of dance music's rapid ascension in the latter half of the 90's. "Going out is really about celebrating life, and having a good time. That's what Everybody is all about- celebrating life." A pretty simple outlook, and a damn healthy one for a culture that perhaps began to take itself a bit too seriously.

The new mix album directly reflects this "let's try something new and just have fun with it" approach. From the opening bits, you are sucked right from the taxi cab and onto the dancefloor, and from there on out it's simply just a flawlessly put together sampling of everything that's good about dance music in 2004. Producers like Metro Area, Playgroup, and the DFA have made much noise throughout the last year or so with their take on NYC's early 80's punky disco movement, and Sander chooses to open up with two fantastically fonky numbers (Solaris Heights' "Midnight" and Van Bellen & Greed's "City Lights," respectively) that recall those aforementioned acts' brightest moments. From there, he expertly (perhaps an understatement, as the mixing is hugely inspired) ups the tempo with some ridiculously funky and percussive progressive numbers, including Lee Cabrera's remix of Morjac feat. Raz Conway's "Stars," until CD1 reaches its frenzied peak with Pig & Dan's "Addiction" and Chable & Bonicci's "Ride". "Addiction" is simply a burner, anchored with an oh-so-tough bassline and a dirty-as-hell vocal that will make every last raver want to ditch the glowstick, throw back a shot, and get down to some seedy business in a dark corner of their favorite club. Up and coming Aussie producer Chable teams up with Bonicci on "Ride," which continues the bass frenzy with this simple, yet simply genius dance floor killer.

Disc two again begins on a pleasantly unexpected tip via one of France's Versatile Records' most creative acts- Joakim. Joakim's cheeky "Come Into My Kitchen" is a perfect hand clap-laden, cheeky opening number that segues into some more 80's influenced punky-disco-inspired numbers like Nicolas Vallee's aptly titled "New New York". Disc two then moves into some funky house numbers, including Undo/Redo's monstrous "The Voyager," with its highly appropriate "Everybody!" vocal refrain. Disc 2 closes out with a Sander exclusive, his sublime "Repeat to Specify," which serves as able proof that the selecta does in fact know his way around the boards.

If you want to be a genre scholar- it's easy to hear how Sander moves easily between the whole world of electro/disco/punk-flavored tunes and the forward thinking European "let's do prog house differently" set (one of you writers needs to come up with a genre name for them). And if you don't want to be a genre scholar- it's easy to see that this guy just picked, mixed and produced some amazing tunes (hmm, perhaps that whole "Best DJ Compilation in the History of the Universe Ever" thing wasn't just a silly hyperbole�).

Sander Kleinenberg has been bringing this kind of creativity and quality control to the remix/production front as well. His revelatory (and March '03 Billboard Dance Singles chart topping) reworking of Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body" gets to the nub of Sander's current mandate for dance perfection. Building on a Neptunes production is no mean feat, but Sander manages it; stripping away all superfluous trimmings and working the original song structure into nine minutes of spellbinding house music wonderment. He drops the track's original bassline, making it sound like a lost Mantronix classic or something that would have provided the peak moment of a Junior Vasquez set in mid-nineties New York; darkly soulful, sexy, illicit and thoroughly irresistible. "I've got this idea," he says. "I'm feeling house music and club music are maybe slowly going back to where it was pre-'90s, where a song is a song and you don't bitch around with it." It's a damn good idea - and it works.

Yes, progressive house and electronic music as a whole are going through some strange times. Labels are going out of business by the handful, clubs are closing their doors, and yet we've got Puffy collaborating with Deep Dish, Missy Elliot rocking glitchy two step beats, and Andre 3000 name checking Aphex Twin. It's a time of renaissance for the music, and its artists like Sander Keinenberg that are set to become the new heroes. The time to pay attention is now people.