JS16

Los Angeles imprint Priority Records has snatched up a two-year-old recording by JS16, the hip and sexy handle for Finnish tech-head Jaako Salovaaro. The twenty-something knob-twiddler has loaded Stomping System, his stateside debut, with ten tracks of get-on-up-and-dance music. The tracks here are grown primarily on simple tribal house programming, generic diva vocals and dirty Euro noise. But JS16’s final result does not lack frenetic party energy: His deployment of 4×4 programming, siren effects (albeit a cliched tic) and fuzzy breakbeat riffs is effective and fun. While the industrial undercurrent of the Crystal Method or Prodigy is missing from this shallow recording, electro-hop bubblegum themes like “Beat Box” and “Throw Your Hands in the Air” make up for that lack with pitch-perfect tech rhythms. And the filtered Teutonic grooves of “Hi-Fly Aeroplane (DC-10 mix)” borrow beautifully from the dreamy blueprints laid by Sven Vath. Somehow the accessible Stomping System — obviously aimed at club kids’ home stereos — sounds more honest and up-front than similarly patchy offerings targeted at a more underground clientele.