Kaskade

While he's largely known as one of the Bay Area's leading house producers/DJs —see such soulful, dance-floor-detonating anthems as "Sweet Love" and "Steppin' Out" — Kaskade has kicked out solo albums that have stretched his sound to its very limit. Take his 2006 platter, Love Mysterious, for instance; lurking beyond all the 4/4 beats and speaker-flexing basslines are shades of lovelorn R&B ("Sorry"), widescreen pop ("In This Life"), and club-clobbering gospel that brings a whole new meaning to the time-tested phrase "God is a DJ" ("Be Still"). Meanwhile, Kaskade's secret stash of singles, EPs, and compilation contributions show even more sides to his producer career, as spotlighted in our Next Steps.

One of the hardest things about loving dance music is keeping your ears locked on all the stray cuts that sneak onto mixes and small releases. That's why we narrowed down some of Kaskade's finest non-album moments, including traces of tribal house ("Late Night Jackin'"), Motown-schooled soul ("Gonna Make It"), and dimly lit downtempo ("Samba Love"); extended edits of "Sometimes," "All You," and "Move for Me"; and a relentless Derrick Carter mix of the dream Mark Farina/Kaskade duet, "To Do." Ah, but what about Kaskade's hefty stack of remixes, either of other artists or of himself? They're all over our Deep Cuts.

On one level, Kaskade's peak-hour production style is tailor-made for tweaking Top 40 tracks, whether he's slinging serrated synth lines at Britney Spears ("Gimme More"), rolling an easygoing organ and shifty drum loops under Justin Timberlake ("LoveStoned / I Think She Knows"), or unleashing a spring-loaded take on Seal ("Amazing"). And then there's the magic other producers have worked on Kaskade's back catalog, including the persistent piano lines and delicate melodies of Marques Wyatt's "Sweet Love" mix, the steady build and buzz-saw beats of Jay-J's "Shifted Up Dub" approach to "Be Still," and the heat-seeking hooks of Dirty South's GRAMMY®-nominated "Sorry" mix.

Born in Chicago but bred in the highly competitive clubs of his longtime home, San Francisco, Kaskade first hit the dance music scene with the 2001 single "What I Say," a patient platter of heart-tugging house that helped earn him an A&R job and a string of successful releases at Om Records. And we're not talkin' your usual house blend of four-on-the-floor rhythms and delicious diva melodies, either; Kaskade quickly rose to the top of California's DJ/producer ranks by expanding his sound through galloping guitars and heady minor-key hooks ("Steppin' Out"), cold-pressed beats and hushed harmonies ("4 AM"), and skittish percussion patterns that bring out the primal "must . . . dance . . . now" person in all of us ("Soundtrack to the Soul"). And now, with several Deadmau5 collaborations ("I Remember," "Move for Me") tacked onto his growing discography, there's no telling what kind of tracks the guy might drop on us next.