Durante Dazzles on Debut Album, ‘Enter’

Durante blends peak dancefloor energy and Sunday living room listening for a euphoric journey of an LP.

So picture this: The year is 2015, you just get home after a long day at work, and you finally get to unwrap the latest FIFA to play with your homies. You’ve been eagerly awaiting this installment, not only for the new features as well as the first time you can play with women’s teams, but, as any diehard fan of the series will tell you, the kick-ass soundtrack.

You finally get past that intro screen, and the first track that comes on is a groovy little number called “Slow Burn.” A soulful piano house nod with Chuck Ellis on vocals, you find yourself vibing instantly and go to take a look at the soundtrack. You make a note of the artist: Durante.

In the near decade since that iteration of FIFA came out, the franchise has become more and more stale while Kevin Durante, better known simply by his last name, has gone from strength to strength. The LA-based, Italian producer has blossomed into an extremely versatile artist over the 2010s, seamlessly blending elements of techno, house, and more.

His unique style has caught and captivated labels like Armada, Amtrac’s Openers imprint, and Anjunadeep. Finally, after 18 long years honing his musical affinity, the latter has given a home to his long-awaited debut LP, Enter.

Suitably, this album acts like a coming-of-age for the producer. Crafted over the last three years, there’s a certain air of innocence about Enter, a nostalgia that makes this album feel like a dream come to life. The maturity in the production nonetheless keeps the album grounded to the reality of modern dance music. Lean back. Inhale. Fall away.

Stream Durante – Enter on Spotify:

Enter The Dream…

Enter seems less like a statement and more like a question. Enter what, exactly? A sonic diary over the last two decades? A vast dreamscape? Both and more? Enter leaves this open-ended question to the listener.

For us at EDM Identity, it paints us a lucid dream journal that sees Durante grow up with his compatriots acting as narrators of this story. We start at a crawl, with the opening track, ironically named “Close,” showcasing Durante’s appreciation for classical piano in an ambient number akin to Italian composers of ages long passed. This opening track emerges like a newborn from the depths of nothingness longing to understand what’s real and what’s a dream.

“Close” leads into the first of a few collaborations on the album, folllowed by the breakbeat bliss of “LMK” alongside CRi. Hot on the back of his own second LP on Anjunadeep, Miracles, the Montreal singer and producer hasn’t lost a step here. Between his dreamy vocals and Durante’s touch on drums tethering reality to this dream dimension, the pair show that dreams aren’t always that far from reality.

A collaboration with Nathan Nicholson and another solo breakbeat outing in the form of “Opalescent” show Durante’s first steps. Whether it’s finding your footing in a dream or the first steps in front of his parents Camcorder is up to you. Meanwhile, Australia’s Running Touch adds a somber chapter to Enter. “Someday soon, make your move. Rise with the light to the east of you,” he sings, as if telling Durante to seize his adolescence or to take in the dream as it unfolds before him.

London’s SOHN brings us into Durante’s teenage years, and the first embers of love, the fittingly titled “Losing Game.” The dream teaches Durante that first loves, no matter how bright, how fierce, tend to be predetermined to burn, erupt, and flicker back into nothing. SOHN haunts on this progressive number, as the warning perforates both dreams and reality, that love is eternal, and ephemeral at the same time. It’s a hard lesson indeed.

Yet, that inner flame doesn’t die, instead finding itself sparking again on the next track, “Hot Night.” It’s an ode to the teenage vigor of summer love in the form of a classic rave anthem alongside frequent collaborator and fellow LA-based singer-producer HANA. The track ordering here perfectly encapsulates the intensity of young love, in both the slow-burning emotion demonstrated by progressive house and the intensity of techno/rave.

We start rounding out Durante’s parallel journeys through both dreams and young adulthood throughout the entirety of Enter, through tracks such as the acid-tinged “Ancora,” the hypnotic “Portal Six,” and the closing track “Silos.” As Durante navigates the last of the lessons in this dream, and simultaneously graduates from grade school over the final stretch of the album, you feel him come into his own. The final five tracks are all solo outings. More and more, you see his vision, a culmination of his own experiences shaping how he views the world.

Yes, 18 years of this musical journey has matured him into a solid, well-rounded artist. He’s able to toe between his dreams and his reality, blur the lines, yet still differentiate between the two worlds. Somehow, he can even wake up from his dream, yet also hold that innocent sense of self that tends to get eroded with the hard lessons learned throughout growing up. To be able to hold onto both worlds, both realities, simultaneously real and unreal, is where creativity flourishes, where human potential is at its peak.

Enter. That word again. The entrance to Durante’s dream is also the exit into his current reality. The culmination of experiences both tangible and intangible to the listener have brought us here.

Where the LA producer shines on Enter is through his selection of fellow kindred spirits: CRi, Nathan Nicholson, Running Touch, and HANA. Together, they take you to a dreamscape where the possibilities are endless, where ever taller heights are reachable with proper guidance and companionship, all the while rooting you to reality.

With an extensive album tour across North America culminating in a stop on the white beaches of Dhërmi, Albania for the illustrious Anjunadeep Explorations music festival, it seems like Kevin Durante becomes more himself with every release. With an aptitude for blurring the lines between dreams and reality, he seems to have tapped into a realm that shows that we exist in mirror images between ourselves and what we perceive ourselves to be.

Now wake up, into the reality that Durante at the height of his prowess currently resides, or drift into the unknown that he molds as his story unfolds. Either way, it captivates, entrances, and makes for oh-so-inviting re-listening, whether at home or live on one of his tour dates this spring and early summer.

Durante – Enter – Tracklist:

Close

LMK (with CRi)

Holding On (feat. Nathan Nicholson)

Opalescent

Remedy (feat. Running Touch)

Leonid

Losing Game (feat. SOHN)

Hot Night (feat. HANA)

Ancora

Reaching

Portal Six

Mercury

Silos

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