After generating some mainstream buzz with 2009’s For Lack of a Better Name, plus a high-profile gig at the Winter Olympics earlier this year, Toronto DJ Deadmau5 swings left of center on 4×4=12, a progressive house album designed mostly for sweaty, throbbing dance floors. The 11-track record is structured like a giant circle — building up, closing in, and then bringing it all back around before it tucks you into dreamland at the end of the night. The album’s opening cuts — “Some Chords” and “Sufi Needs a Ladder” — set the tone for 4×4=12‘s mood-grooving play list, which unfolds like a seamless club set. Deadmau5 (born Joel Zimmerman) and his collaborators — including Greta Saba Beech on the spacious “Raise Your Weapon” and Los Angeles singer Sufi on a pair of tracks — go deep with the record’s multi-textured beats. They make even the grittiest computer music on 4×4=12 sound soulful. — Jara Anton
This article appears in Dec 15-21, 2010.
