After focusing the bulk of 2012 on raw, edgy basslines and euphoric anthems, Dutch superstar Nicky Romero decides to steer back towards his roots with the super funky and always fresh track, Still The Same Man. Influenced by the iconic track, Same Man by Till West ft. DJ Delicious (and further influenced by the Original, For The Same Man by the B Beat Girls), Nicky Romero teams up with Nilsen and John Christian to give us a jacking 2012 update, perfect for any festival. Romero and Nilsen are not strangers with collaborating, as they teamed up in 2010 with the alias, Saxxo and created some seriously sizzling tracks on Fedde Le Grand‘s personal label, Flamingo Records. This piece has been an essential staple of Fedde Le Grand‘s sets for some time and we are ecstatic that this mix is finally reaching the light of day. Nicky takes his huge success with Camorra and incorperates it in this tune with some sick, rolling basslines for a hell of a groovy track.
In Still The Same Man, Nicky Romero showcases that he is still the undisputed king of percussion in this expertly crafted track. The basskick is nice and punchy, with some crisp trumpets, light cowbell and rumbling basslines. Nicky plays yet another of his old calling cards, with using a vocal cut for timbral effect. Switching it up with a nice Breaks section showcasing the old but gold synths and the B Beat Girls vocals, we first hear the hint of radically funky bells. It builds up using Nicky‘s standard method of creating energy with increasing snares, rising synths, increased wobbling and pushing white noise. However, it does not drop like in current Nicky Romero fame, but harkens back into the Dutch sound of ’09/’10 where funkiness and dancable music clashed perfectly with big room sensibilities. The drop has a fantastically jelled bell line and incorperates an astoundingly complex percussion ensemble, with rolling basslines, hi hats galore, vocal cuts, and others to give us a maximal Tech House tune that smashes speakers everywhere. The build ups are massive and these three’s combined talents give such a mature, well crafted sound and bopping groove to this piece. We predict that this number will be played a LOT over festival season. 
http://youtu.be/-kLmc05xL3E
It is interesting to note that this going to be released on Toolroom Records, a record company notorious for groove and funk in all of its releases. It is also interesting to note that Hardwell released a track earlier in 2012 on the same record company called Three Triangles and it brought back the same Techy Hardwell of a couple of years ago. As the years waned on, both Hardwell and Nicky Romero have both changed their sound to their increasingly diverse audience and have become more like Progressive House producers than Big Room Tech producers. However, this association is prevalent and maybe we can see Toolroom as an outlet for these two producers to produce what they were masters at before. Both of their sounds in the ’09/’10 era were legendary and nothing has come close to replicating it (except maybe Fedde Le Grand). Maybe this is a sign the the Tech era is upon us yet again and that great quality music will be expertly produced by those who are experts in the game. And maybe the aptly named Still The Same Man is Nicky secretly telling us that he’s still got what it takes to create the iconic ‘Nicky Romero‘ sound. We don’t have a release date yet on this track, but we will let you as soon as we have more information.
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