Bearweasel - Things EP (TSUBA044)

What I like about the Bearweasel output is that it's consistent - not only in terms of quality, but in the way the lone ranging Staines production duo of Dean Muhsin and lover Louisa Page are prepared to continue to hone their craft and refine their style in place of stomping aimlessly and endlessly onwards.

For evidence, look no further than their latest EP, Things, which is a well paced, well balanced exploration of three types of deep - late night and hypnotic (‘Styly') sunset and chilled (‘Time To Start Again') icy and weightless (‘Button Down The Moose') - with each elongated work more than doing enough to warrant the seven minute plus track lengths.

The finest offering of a solid package comes right at the start: ‘Styly' is a dusty, unhurried and seemingly endless passage of Detroit inspired deepest house. The way the elements of the track interact and blend into one another, the way a distant spiralling synth circles ominously enough to add trepidation to proceedings and the way a masked, rattling snare sequence snaps in an out all bring to mind the hazy, soulful sounds of someone like Omar S at his best. Yes, that good.

Less intense but just as focused on carving a groove is ‘Time to Start Again' where a breezier, watery mid ground is pinned down with a pendulous, deep looping beat and is punctuated with clipped, curt snares: no showy drops, no attention grabbing hooks, just fine arrangements and subtle charm.

Final original track ‘Button down the Moose' is a swollen, bulbous dub cut which folds you into the fluffy midst of its deep bass chambers then gently keeps you turning with a delicately placed selection of icy, tinkling cymbals and raindrop drips. The subdued crackle and latent hiss of this super warm track is the sort of thing which the medium of vinyl was invented for.

It's also the sort of track which, for remixing, demands the attention of someone like dub techno torchbearer Brendon Moeller and, here in his Echologist guise, that's what it gets. The original's gentle forward motion is restrained yet further by Moeller who instead forces energies sideways for the first three and a half minutes before finally allowing some horizontal percussive movement and a thud-thud kick to seep into proceedings during the second half.

They certainly aren't a hyped duo, but it's hard to work out why owing to the knowing restraint, learned class and subtle individualism inherent in anything to which this duo put their name. If there's such as thing as a DJ's DJ, when you hear this EP you'll understand that I dare to declare Bearweasel the producer's producers.
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»-> Description <-«
Artist: Bearweasel
Title: Things EP
Label: Tsuba Records
Catalog#: TSUBA044
Genre: Deep House, Techno
Tracks: 04
Encoder: LAME 3.97
Duration: 32:11
Release Date: 27 August 2010
Quality: 320 Kbps / 44.1kHz / Joint-Stereo
Store: Beatport
Size: 71.1 MB
DownLOAD 1 @ Full & DownLOAD 2 @ Full

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