Renaissance presents The Masters Series - Sandy Rivera

The Masters Series - Sandy Rivera image

Released 4^th September 2006

Growing up in Spanish Harlem, Sandy Rivera was immersed in a variety of diverse musical cultures. Listening to the sounds of Parliament-Funkadelic and early hip-hop left as legacy of the distinctive style that Sandy has become known for, which is why he is now as comfortable spinning the dark, dirty rooms of Ibiza’s underbelly or smoothing it out on the most soulful of dancefloors.

In the mid-nineties he started Deep-Vision, a label that soon established Rivera as a sonic innovator and allowed him to release landmark records such as The Committee’s "Scream & Shout" and Soul Division’s "Don’t Stop".

All of this experience came together with the unmitigated hit of "Finally", released under the Kings Of Tomorrow guise. It was voted track of the year by Muzik Magazine, licensed around the world and remixed by the likes of Danny Tenaglia! His career flourished further with the release of the mix CDs, "The Kings Of Tomorrow Sessions Vol 13" for Ministry Of Sound and and "Sandy Rivera - In The House" with long time acolytes Defected.

More recently Sandy has been exploring a deeper, diverse sound via his Blackwiz label, a moniker he learnt to remix successes on his own "6am" and Wahoo’s 2005 Ibiza smash "Make Em Shake It".

Now Renaissance welcomes Sandy Rivera into the fold as he becomes the latest artist to take up the mantle of The Masters Series, following DJs such as Deep Dish, "Dave Seaman - Volume 7", Hernan Catteneo, Danny Howells & Nick Warren. With such a notable track record and the support of Renaissance, Sandy’s compilation seems set to raise the bar still higher in what is already one of the most illustrious series in the industry.

After Rivera’s own intro, the beautiful Joi Cardwell’s "What It Feels Like" kicks off CD1 with the Quentin Harris Mix playing some superb melodic vocals. Jamie Lewis’ stompy Main Mix of his collaboration with Michael Watford "It’s Over" flows into the soulful sounds of Drew & Perez featuring Don E "Bonafide".

More lushush lyrics heading in an guitar-heavy electro-punk direction with tracks by LDOE "Crimes" and Red Eleven featuring Sandy Rivera "I Wanna", both opening things up for a few electro-tech collabs brilliantly titled; "Disco Shit" and "Malteser Geezer".

Disc 2 starts with the predominantly instrumental sounds of Fancuilli’s Buick Project with "Luminaire", this leads on to Mark Knight’s solid jaunty SK Mix of Haji’s "Angels Of Love". Keeping things equally melodic and electronic with artists AME & Tigerskin, progressing nicely on to Sandy’s meeting with Robert Owens on "Just Won’t Do" (the Italy remix).

Darker tech-house canters through Mark Knight’s remix of Kings Of Tomorrow "6PM" & NDRU "A Pony Called Clipklop" ending on a vocal high with "Three Days" by Hadar, this time Sandy Rivera’s own Blackwiz Remix obliges.

Renaissance does it once again in extra Master Series style, Sandy Rivera’s top selection of tunage can’t fail to delight... Other classic compilations from other sessions have included "Frontiers" mixed by Behrouz & Yousef, and "3D" mixed by Satoshi Tomiie.