D.O.N.S. is best known to many clubbers as a remixer of Technotronic's immortal "Pump Up the Jam." Some 16 years after the original track's release, in 2005 the Hamburg, Germany-based producer took his reworked version into the far reaches of the UK singles chart. He did so by grabbing the swagger of the original track and imbuing it with his signature stamp, an electro-based but commercially friendly brand of house. In yet more '90s dance nostalgia, he's also in recent years given the treatment to tracks by Reel 2 Real and even the Real McCoy.
D.O.N.S. has pumped out plenty of his own jams too, and they're as cheerfully crowd-pleasing as the remixes. Divas' commands weave in and out of heavy synth pads and crescendoing snares, all dramatically reaching those requisite big-room climaxes. But there's just enough weirdness here to keep a listener off-guard. The guy is German, after all, and some tracks have just a dab of tech-y vibes. Not too much, though — for D.O.N.S., the peak hour is clearly the only one that matters. Before a serious schedule of WMC gigs, he plays B.E.D. this Tuesday to celebrate the release of his new artist album on his own imprint, Kingdom Kome.
