Richard Durand - Reactivate (2022)

A Richard Durand album is a rarer item these days and even more welcome for it. Since the heady times of his ‘Always The Sun’ debut, swiftly followed by 2012’s ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Richard Durand Versus The World’ the following year, the Dutchman’s taken a more measured approach to the longplayer release.

‘The Air We Breathe’ in 2018 ended a six-year interlude, and it’s been a further four to where we stand today. That, specifically, is the release of ‘Reactivate’, his consummate fifth LP, which releases Jan 28. Unlike some contemporaries, Richard’s not fundamentally re-designed his sound to mirror world events. His consensus was that - even had he wanted to, something less floor-centric simply wouldn’t have been him.
While unmixed, in both approach and structure, ‘Reactivate’ is probably Richard’s most ‘music-compilation-like’ LP to date. As such, its earlier moments are largely given over to tracks with a song-based bias. Featuring the never-less-than reflective words of Christian Burns, the touching vocal refrains of his most recent single, ‘Almost Home’ opens the album. That transitions perfectly into the harmonically affecting mid-paced space of ‘It’s Not Too Late’, adding to the album’s early sense of bitter-sweetness.

As with Christian, the album has presented Richard with the opportunity to re-collaborate with Christina Novelli. Emotionally, ‘My Guiding Light’ generates the uplift, while ‘Made Of Stone’ that follows it - and features singer-songwriter Sarah De Warren - adds lyrical resolve. With the inclusion of his recent debut team-up with HALIENE (on the Beatport #1 ‘Give Your Heart A Home’), ‘Reactivate’s needle begins to swing and the album increases its instrumental presence with the ethereally natured ‘Tales Of A Silhouette’.