Search - Roger Sanchez :: Release Yourself 4: Mixed By Roger Sanchez

CD1: The Best RY Compilation

David H | Jackson Heights, NY USA | 08/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This mixed compilation is, I promise, a classic musical vintage guaranteed to perfectly match or contrast anything life puts on your plate. From first notes to soothing aftertaste, a classic served by a connoisseur of great world rhythms, seconds splitting into sound that will echo infinitely in your soul, this compilation will simply and beautifully help you do exactly what its server urges: Release Yourself.



1: Sia: Breathe Me (Mylo Mix). After the departing whoosh of the jet about to take you on a journey, the words "release yourself" are your only flight instructions. Then, the music speaks: a relaxing string melody stretching through the song like an open horizon is soon to contrast with an anguished bassline, while digital effects drop and break eccentrically into harmonious waves around Sia's melancholy vocals. This song is a classic: It can begin or end anything (it ended HBO's Six Feet Under, arguably the best TV drama series ever made) and still give you exactly what you need from it. "How can you possibly follow a song like this?" you ask. Brace yourself, no, no, wait, release yourself: Roger does. That's right!



2. In Sueno Soul's Better Love (Rocco Mix), angelic keyboard notes balance out effusive maracas that mimic your excited heartbeat, and women announce your destination in unison, "Sweet Heaven," repeatedly, tirelessly, until your disbelief subsides. You get off: A thick welcoming bassline rolls out endlessly before you. Your feet can't avoid moving now. Unexpectedly, you hear the woman you left behind (wherever you came from) telling you of her regrets and wishing you find a better love in sweet heaven. A breeze of trumpets and flutes carry the feeling into the chorus. If this song doesn't heal your broken heart, I don't know what will.



3. Dominica's This World lures you in with a sex-hungry bassline that spreads through this song like a coral reef. Wherever you go, the air reverberates with digital sounds, hands striking musical bones, wooden boxes, a tambourine, while crisp sonar bleeps track the sea life dancing underwater. A mermaid whispers the lyrics, getting closer to you with every word, her hair blowing with the breeze: a botticellian dream. You dance under her spell, like a fish surrendering to the current of a life made so pleasingly simple. You are, it is, for as long as this song lasts.



4. Quicksound's This Song Is for You gets you dangerously closer to oblivion. The woman singing pleads and moans, her notes like arrows relentlessly hitting their target while a jazzy trumpet responds with improvised notes that scatter helplessly under the gentle spell of a deep, zero-gravity bassline.



5 & 6. Louie Vega Presents Journey's Prelude (Frankie Feliciano Beats) to Nikos' Bright Like a Star wake you up to a wonderful morning--not bad, considering the beautiful dream you just had. Drums, congas, and flute melodies intertwine with soothing keyboard chords and lyrics that encourage you to enjoy life and stand up for what is right. Apply this message to your brain, massage gently, use daily: worldly dirt will rinse off. A trumpet solo rises like a hot sun: it's time to dance like palm trees.



7. Raw Artistic Soul's Kana carries the upbeat rhythm of a Garifuna song into the afternoon. Beats break, a flute sighs and then soars wild, a guitar riff teases, subtle keyboards bridge over the gap between a chorus of couples singing, and I don't really need to know what it all means; I want to imagine it.



8. Franck Roger & M'Selem Ft. Chris Wonder's No More Believe is a great soulful track with creative vocals whose range is as broad and intense as the most incandescent twilight. One of my favorite tracks on this CD, it's got the kind of sexy tempo dancers can do wonders with at different speeds. Though it's built on a digital loop, it's got up to three keyboards going at once, with riffs, solos and melodies that ooze sex and make for one great foreplay of a song.



9. Liquid People's Inside My Soul has both the reliable rhythm and creative arrangement of great love-making. Need I say more. (OK, maybe it should last longer, ha, ha.)



10. Cube Guys' Te Quiero. This track is what a beautiful beach sounds like @ sunrise when the first morning waves leave their foamy prints in the sand. A woman moaning lyrics like the ones on this song deserves at least as many orgasms as she can give just singing the way she does. The Spanish-guitar sound on this one will give you chills, becoming heat and leavening, for anything that can rise within earshot of this song will. That is the opposite of a warning, everyone.



11. Gregor Salto Ft. Helena Mendes's Boa Viagem is a remake of an old Brazilian classic. It's got a bouncy bassline but the best part is the acoustic guitar break and the rock-style electric guitar solo that soon follows. I think this song is better just to listen to. Nothing bad with that.



12. Colors & Cannus's Sonice is a house-style lullaby, where the verses of the song are whispered by a woman-wind while I swing ever slowly to her voice in a hammock suspended along the porch of my cabana in a place called Placidity: "Breathing between two worlds, where paradise is only the beginning, where two hearts beat under the same horizon, trapped between two dimensions..."



13 & 14. Kaskade's Sweet Love (Fred Everything Mix) and Silicon Soul's Feeling Blue descend on you like a suspenseful night but somehow make sense in the company of such a brilliant musical constellation, by keeping the compilation grounded in the unsettling nostalgia they conjure up at the end.



Music like this inspires you to be free, to be good, to release yourself from anything that holds you back, to be grateful and to foster love, peace and hope in your heart."

Nice vibe

Ted Hopkins | Arizona | 01/30/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I really enjoyed both discs on Release Yourself 4. I bought both vol. 4 and Vol. 5 and I like 4 just a little better. Now I have to check out Vol. 3.

There is a nice latin flare to some of the songs on this CD that I really enjoy. Every track on here is a 4 to 5 star. For those that dont like the hard hitting techno or trance you will certainly enjoy this music."