DJ Jonathan Peters
LIVE WITH JONATHAN PETERS
(GROOVALICIOUS)
Peters, a major DJ presence in the NYC house underground these past eight years, makes his double-disc debut with a 26-track set that runs the gamut from deep hard house to dreamy Euro to flamboyant diva style with rich melodies and plush rhythms that are as far from the brittle minimalism of acid and trance as it’s possible to get. Peters is younger than the established masters of New York house, and that’s all to the good: not since Junior Vasquez and Danny Tenaglia surfaced in the early to mid ’90s has a DJ rendered classic NYC house anew without compromising its soulful, deep-throb essentials. In a manner that takes up the ecstasies of David Morales but with more orchestral embroidery and vocal extremism than Morales’s soft simplicities afford, Peters fills a room with gorgeous sounds and emotional heat, as he pushes his beats, adds fierce diva voices, and guides them to a joint climax. Changing his tones and combinations of tones, breaking his rhythms when one least expects it (and never with the same sonic progression), he keeps the dancer on edge. If excitement is what you dance in search of, and if the continuously unexpected is how you hope to get there, then these two sets — the first glamorously atmospheric, the second strong hard soulful house — are the ticket. High points: Goldtrix with Andrea Brown’s "It’s Love," Pappa and Gilbey’s "Skin Deep," Latin Headhunters’ "Let Your Spirit," and Ben Shaw featuring Adele Holness’s "So Strong," from the second CD, and Peters’s remix of the Fifth Dimension’s "Let the Sunshine," Monica Kruse’s "Wir tanzen in der Nacht," and Peters’s own "Manufactory" and "Been Through It," from the first.
Issue Date: April 4 - 11, 2002
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