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Album reviews Music

Dinamo Azari

For about five years, Azari & III were one of Toronto’s most successful dance exports, playing soulful pop-house and big-room acid jams at massive festivals across Europe even though they continued to be a cult act at home. On his debut solo LP, producer Dinamo Azari (aka Christian Farley) doubles down on his old band’s darker, techy and referential tendencies in homage to the local after-hours scene he never really left.

Estranged keeps him firmly on the dance floor, swapping Azari & III’s playful sounds for diversions into zoned-out bliss. Azari & III vocalists Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder guest on the poppiest and warmest cut, lead single Victim, but mostly Estranged treats its softer and distorted moments as transitory interludes between cleanly produced and muscular club rhythms.

He nods to Canadian dance history on Hacienda by lifting a classic 80s acid piano riff from producer Nick Fiorucci, while Edge Of Control is typical of his dubbed-out approach to vocal production. There is a gradual, subtle shift to dreamier moods in the latter third, so although Estranged has a head-down seriousness, it doesn’t always feel relentless. 

Top track: Victim 

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