Bart Van Wissen "Jaywalking EP"

While the Dutch persona has always been one of pure trance, their musical ability transcends this pigeonhole. Bart Van Wissen demonstrates this with his own melodic blend of progressive house. Building on his ‘Crazy Local EP’ and his remix of ‘Dirty Monday’ by Phatjak last year, two more Van Wissen originals in ‘Jaywalking’ and ‘Cruiser’ have been released on Vapour Recordings.

‘Jaywalking’ has a big 80s style synth laid over omnipresent hi-hats and housey claps. It lacks a subtlety to move but that helps its big room sound by powering through layered pads and a rockstar-esque distortion guitar melody. Between beat and bassline, it continues to bouncy with crisp precision until the end of the last phrase.

Meanwhile ‘Cruiser’ is a nice little ending gem from its opening tip. Like a dark Chab track, ‘Cruiser’ survives on its uniformed bassline but doesn’t breathe until its tingling melody. It brilliantly never gets too comfortable and can therefore be hard to pinpoint which direction to take it, but any dark track sounds even darker mixed behind this attention grabber.

‘Jaywalking’ has its moments but ‘Cruiser’ proves to be close to unstoppable as Bart Van Wissen demonstrates his prowess beyond the renowned trance of his country.