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Italian house superstar Claudio Coccoluto and Savino Martinez (the producer behind the ultimate samba dance masterpiece, "Belo Horizonti") join forces to create this collection of well-crafted house tracks that finely balance hip-shaking Latin rhythms, bass-crunching dub drums, and catchy yet minimal electronic melodies. The duo touches on just about everything that is good about house music without ever sounding contrived. "Mes Amis de Paris" is a French filtered-disco jam that beats most cuts by actual Frenchmen, while "The Sailing Suite" relies almost solely on minimal drum loops to carry the tune until it peaks with a disco orchestra sample and then surprisingly morphs into a heavily delayed techno coda, à la Basic Channel. "Gold Sand" finely meshes deep house organ with some restrained acid lines, an unusual blend that seems obvious once you hear it. The strength behind the Dub Duo is their ability to combine diverse archetypes of dance music sounds into coherent wholes that sound effortless when done this well. Each track offers a continuum of new elements as it plays out from beginning to end. Yet each element fits so perfectly with the entire cut that you'll wonder if it was there the entire time. ~ Joshua Glazer|