Onic Deemo

Dirty Tricks, Onic Deemo’s latest effort, is made up of twelve distinct tracks that at times recall Paul Van Dyk and Armin Van Buuren, but mostly seem to be influenced by trance legend DJ Micro. The album begins with a classic (albeit dirty) trance sound for the first several tracks before kicking into gear with “Boom Spy,” “Punk Shui” and “Electrome,” then continues with “Stomp Tech,” which contains noise patterns more typical to electro, and finishes up with the eerie title track. Deemo (aka Jarrod Rodriguez) keeps the customary anthem-y sirens and progressive crescendos of trance from sounding overly cheesy by adding interesting computerized noises and discordant strings, then fading effects in and out while distorting his bass lines for a result that is edgier, dirtier and more interesting than most music of this ilk.