Timo Maas: Loud : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

For the last two years every internationally known DJ has dropped the needle on the record of tracks by German producer/DJ Timo Maas. While Maas has been playing for more than a decade and writing music since the mid-Nineties, on Loud, his debut of wholly original music, he isn't satisfied to throw down a bevy of similar sounding tracks, leaving one or two to shine. The differences between the electro-funk of "To Get Down," the hard house of "That's How I've Been Dancing," the repetitive trance of "Like Love" and the utterly beautiful chillness of "Bad Days" are broad and welcome. There are very few producers in dance music today who can straddle so many different genres and succeed nearly every time. Urban soulstress Kelis lends her voice to the entrancing "Help Me," while Finley Quaye gets closer to purported cousin Tricky with the dark, pounding "Caravan." And while these two vocalists give personality to their tracks, there is no question these songs were built for massive clubs; Loud in your living room doesn't have the same impact. His remix work for Madonna and the respect of Fatboy Slim are touted as signs of his impending breakthrough, but the guy does just fine on his own. Loud is the anomaly among dance releases: it works from start to finish, but stands tallest as fourteen tracks for different crowds, on different nights.

ANDREW STRICKMAN
(March 19, 2002)