A Swedish producer based out of L.A.,
Eric Prydz first hit in 2004 with the
Steve Winwood-sampling "Call on Me" and then became better known for "Proper Education," a 2006 cut that turned
Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" into a slamming dancefloor-filler. His loopy, spacy, and hooky brand of progressive house kept him in good standing with the dancefloor faithful until the 2015 single "Opus" put him back in the general public's eye with its epic nine-minute buildup and a remix request tweeted out by
Kieran Hebden, aka the left-field producer
Four Tet. Perhaps
Prydz is the modern-day
Giorgio Moroder, equally loved by both the electronica elite and sweaty club kids who never bother to look at a record label to catch a name. Both factions will be pleased with
Opus, the long-awaited debut double album, which neither challenges nor fades into the background but entices and pleases the whole way through. The highlights are numerous as "Floj" sounds as if
Moroder joined
the Human League and they went all instrumental, then
Pendulum member and
Deadmau5 collaborator
Rob Swire proves he can emote at half tempo on the well-needed second-disc respite dubbed "Breathe." "Liberate" is the ultimate in uplift as it combines the attractive swirl of vocal trance with the sweaty beats of tribal house, then "Moody Mondays" with the Cut offers itself up to EDM, darkwave, and indie dance playlists because with
Prydz, genres were made to borrow from and blend. Tacked at the end is the always necessary "Opus" in all its glory, and while the
Four Tet remix would have been nice to have (along with the recent
Chvrches collaboration "Tether"),
Opus, the album, is keenly constructed and an excellent beginning-to-end journey in spite of its size. ~ David Jeffries