CADENZA44

If you thought you could put your finger on the "Cadenza sound," think again. The label is back with new signing Frivolous, a familiar face to anyone following house music's irrepressible creative fringe over the past eight years also know for his excellent live acts.

"C:\ My Consciousness" is the anthem you never knew you were waiting for, sounding nothing like you expected but everything you needed. It is, in other words, just what the doctor ordered. Frivolous (Canada's Daniel Gardner, today based in Berlin) has always displayed a unique gift for infusing jacking rhythms with a cocktail of big-band jazz, hypermodern jazz and plain old good humor. His records (for ~scape, Karloff and others) sound a little like you'd expect Raymond Scott's might, if he'd been around for house and techno. " C:\ My Consciousness" is no different: it's alive with bells and cheeky string vamps, New Years noisemakers and high-stepping bass lines. But for all its Technicolor glow, it never lapses into cartoonishness. Known for wielding a telephone receiver in lieu of a microphone in his live shows, Frivolous here treats us to a succinct sung/spoken refrain that goes right to the heart of that crazy thing we call love, and that'll be sure to stick in your head for days. All together, it's the perfect balance between light-heartedness and sober reflection.

Reboot's remix digs into the percussive essence of the track, highlighting the congas and adding shimmying ride cymbals, streamlining the groove and stretching it out for nine delicious minutes. He stays true to the spirit of the original, though, sinking you deep inside the rhythm before the vocal hook finally emerges. Paired with bluesy Rhodes chords, it puts an unusually contemplative spin on a track that's otherwise all about the forward motion.

Digital bonus "River's Fate" finds Frivolous back at his tricks, complementing clean- lined house rhythms with clarinets, string bass, dubbed-out trombone, chopped-up vocal shots – and something that sounds an awful lot like a sitar – to unusually musical effect. There's a sense of Balkan melancholy in the melody, but the track's nimble, skipping groove leaves no room for moping. It takes a special kind of magic to craft music so odd, yet so familiar. Ladies and Gentlemen, the one and only Frivolous.