Pangaea / ‘Inna Daze’
Vinyl / Digital
Hessle Audio / Released February 28th 2011
UK Bass don, and Hessle Audio co-founder Pangaea has done plenty for Britain’s ever burgeoning beats and breaks scene (or at least that’s what it used to be called) since bursting out of Leeds alongside friends, label mates (and business partners) Ben UFO and Ramadanman four years ago. Plenty has changed, with all three now regularly guesting internationally, while the imprint faces stiffer competition in an increasingly saturated market.
So it’s good to see the originators aren’t losing the plot then. A side Inna Daze will remind many of what originally appealed about this particular dubstep sound. A world away from South London’s in-yo-face ethic, it’s moody and dark, with an intermittent car-alarm hook and old-school vocals, as if someone has travelled to way back when, and moved the formative years of British rave wholesale into the future. The definition of downbeat dancefloor fodder, flip it to find something a little more focused on moving those feet.
Won’t Hurt‘s strained reverse strings bring things a little more out of the underground, making for a memorable track regardless of toxin consumption, while its warbling bassline and complicated percussive loops keep things credible in extremis, demanding even the chin-strokers get involved. Strip it down to beats and low end, and you’ve got a final two minutes of heads down mix material that’s perfect for facing up against another track, proving the producer in question remembers this music is supposed to be for DJs- an often-overlooked notion.