For some, the start of a new year means a fresh start, a smattering of new beginnings and the welcome opportunity to suppress any previous personal woes and move on to better things. For others, though, it’s simply business as usual, whether it be another monochrome day in the rat race, another shunt against the omnipresent recession or another day spent at home pointlessly filing paperwork and eating yoghurt in your underpants.
The real beauty of 2010’s forthcoming operations for some dubstep labels, though, is the ability to disguise their fierce forward motion as regular operation. Take for example Punch Drunk – a label somewhat notorious in some circles for unearthing new talent with each release – whose first single of the year marries two of last year’s specialist talents in Hyetal and Shortstuff. Whilst perhaps better known for burying himself in the density and melody of his tunes, Hyetal’s deepness on “Ice Cream” is the perfect counterbalance to Shortstuff’s hyperactive colouring on “Don’t Sleep,” as if Hyetal has cemented those thick black outlines to keep Shortstuff from scribbling maniacally across the page in all the shades of fluorescent highlighters he can muster. Still the scribbles of synthesizer come thick and fast and they do blur the edges of what some consider “dancefloor music” but the duo do it in such a beautifully iridescent and gleeful manner, that each side manages to hammer a mood or vibe perfectly.
Pangaea is another producer currently staking his style and polishing it till it positively shimmers. It may have been a while coming – himself quelling the want for another blissful atmospheric vocal led garage roller like “Router” with the sneaky white label “Memories” at the end of last year – but his double pack EP on Hessle Audio definitely sets his co-run label up for the coming release onslaught. Flicking from his trademark bumpy drums and female vocal led shuffle (“Why,” “Because of You”) to deep bleak rollers like “Dead Living” he layers his work with insane amounts of care, perpetually outdoing himself with subtle arrangements and unexpected flourishes.
[...] READ: Sonic Router: Suburban Sine Wave Surfing (Jan 2010) [...]