Brendon Moeller - ‘Escape’

Brendon Moeller - ‘Escape’
[Steadfast]
October 2009
9/10

It always amazes me that despite constant murmurings about piracy, depleting record sales and collapsing distributors, anyone who's anyone - and even some people who are no-one - own their own label. And so it goes that this release is the first on yet another new label, Steadfast. That said, it's one you're likely to hear about for years to come, for it's under the stewardship of pro' dub technician Brendon Moeller, aka Beat Pharmacy, aka The Echologist.

Overall a ton housier than this normal output, each of the tracks on offer bite from the off - something which came as a pleasant suprise from a man whose tracks normally shimmy slowly into conciousness from distant dub depths - and just about offer enough originality to warrant a label all of their own. Titular track 'Escape' is a colourful house stomper with a muted, well submerged bottom end. Moeller's polished production will always be rooted in dub, but pricked with the less murky sounds of a trumpet flutter, a 'come on everybody' a capella and jazzy sax flecks, this track comes alive like a lot of dub techno so often doesn't.

'Phazed & Confused' is just that - some digital phaze action giving life to mirages of sound which fade this way and that, which drift eerily in and out of focus, but which are all tied together with a prying, creeping chord stab from beginging to end. It's a nice deep track which perenially builds tension without ever quite bubbling over, but which also, importantly, keeps you hooked for the duration.

'Soul Static' is immediately more accesible - straight up house with a plump, dubby midrift of the sort that will get even the most serious of heads shifting some shapes such are its contagious good-time and sun-soaked vibes. The final marker Moeller lays down on this debut Steadfast release is the one closest to what you might expect from him.... Rolling kicks, waves-breaking-on-a-beach synth work, edgeless keys which endlessly dissipate into the background and is a generally plesant, if not particularly dancefloor, spacious house cut. To summarise - a man, label and release, all worthy of your attention.