VERSION 012 Piezo - The Mandrake / Tinned
"The Version label returns with a duo of cuts from the Italian producer Piezo, that regular followers of this page will remember from last month's chart. Piezo has delivered two rather nonchalant club cuts, and by that I mean that they do their own thing with a confidence and a seeming pleasure in being so different, both from each other, and from the wider crowd. ‘The Mandrake’ is a wall of hard ball, slowed up soca, while ‘Tinned’ is more of a technical, thickened-up stomper."
© Olli Marlow, DJ Mag
djmag.com/music/bass/mandrake-0
"Having released on British mainstays Idle Hands and Swamp 81 sub-label, 81, amongst others, Milanese producer Luca ‘Piezo’ Mucci gets the call from Orson’s Version for a slick 12″ of broken beats and fierce sub low experiments.
With recent EPs from cats like Agrippa and Yak, Orson invites another young prospect to his bass-leaning label. Often working to broken techno formulas, Piezo chooses to slow components down to an almost dub-like aesthetic across his two productions, with sharp drum play and tricky timings on space creating just the kind of hostile bass pressure we’ve come to expect from the label."
© Hyponik
hyponik.com/features/first-listen-piezo-tinned-version/
"Piezo is a dubstep-leaning producer who's been releasing music since 2013. He's had a handful of releases on labels like Idle Hands and 81, and plenty more for headsy crews like Subaltern and Artikal Music UK. Most of those are English labels, though, and Piezo is not British. (He's Italian.) His latest record lands on Version, continental Europe's top outpost for dubstep, which feels like a strong match. He delivers two cuts that outline his dynamic style of dubstep, which pairs the sound's UK roots with an international array of influences.
Detailed and powerful, the drums on "The Mandrake" swing in an addictive, elastic arc. Some kicks are engineered like a heavy stomp on pavement, while others are tuned to a melody and matched to a descending bassline that hints at the explosive glee of big-room trap. Around all that is a detailed and wiggly soundscape of ringing glass sounds, exaggerated swoops and hard-panned rustles. It sounds like a serious dungeon dubstep track turned inside-out into a celebratory banger.
Although they're stylistically different, the longer flipside, "Tinned," reminds me of Version founder Orson's "12:09" from his last EP—essentially dubstep at house tempo. Piezo flattens his drums down to a Baltimore-style pattern, attacking them with a flanger in the opening section and later washing them in a rich synth. You could call The Mandrake dubstep. You could also call it beat science.
© Andrew Ryce, Resident Advisor
www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23728