Tiësto
Kaleidoscope

Tiësto, aka Tijs Verwest, is a Dutch DJ and in Italy, we don't give him much attention. Abroad, especially in Eastern Europe (who knows why... oh well), he enjoys immense popularity. Take a look on Facebook: 1 million and 300 thousand fans, not peanuts. A rather well-deserved fame: since 2001, he's been producing progressive trance discs of notable quality (Elements Of Life is one of them), performed with a monumental DJ set at the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympics, and has created remixes of exquisite quality (listen to his remix of "Papillon" by the Editors).

In 2009, dear Tiësto, leveraging the fame he earned even in Great Britain (he was the first DJ to perform in the renovated O2 Arena), gathered around him some rather remarkable and trendy artists, abandoned the progressive trance of the past and composed a very polished album of 73 minutes, divided into 17 tracks, of glitzy techno house: "Kaleidoscope".

Compared to the past, the average duration of the tracks has been reduced (now they last all around 5 minutes on average instead of 7) and the melodies that unfolded languidly have disappeared, replaced by pumped up and catchy techno melodies from the first notes. Yes, the Tiësto we remembered no longer exists, and those who loved his refined way of making trance will be deeply disappointed. The only nod to the past is in the first track, eponymous, and perhaps the best on the album, featuring the angelic voice of Jónsi from Sigur Rós: a swirling crescendo that explodes at the 5-minute mark into a symphony of synths that if it doesn’t make you at least tap your foot, it means you are brain-dead. It continues, already from the second track, with very '90s techno bangers which are nice, yes, but overflowing, excessive, hyper-vitaminized, tiring. The "Tiësto" flaunts the coolest of the moment: Calvin Harris, Nelly Furtado, Kele Okereke (voice of Bloc Party) as if they were stickers, without feeling. The mediocre track with Calvin Harris seems like an outtake from the last Calvin Harris LP, the piece with Okereke, although good and very pop-catchy, seems like a bonus track from Intimacy by Bloc Party themselves; while the one with Nelly Furtado seems, instead, like one of the worst craps of Gigi D'Agostino. "Bend It Like You Don’t Care" is instead a crafty sample from Daft Punk’s Homework. Got the gist? There are good pieces, but the reason for this 2 is that "Kaleidoscope" is a nice, yes, but cloying baroque palace in the long run and with weak foundations: there is no coherence between one track and another and the length of the album is exhausting so much so that it’s unthinkable to listen to it from start to finish without ending up with a substantial number of fried neurons.

In short, "Kaleidoscope" is a glitzy house album with good ideas but too overdone. As in the past, there are melodies, insistent beats too, big names as well but the burning passion (take "Adagio For Strings", for example) has gone to hell. Listened to in small doses it’s quite acceptable, but if you're not familiar with danceable electronic music, this album won't make you like it.