Whether or not on or off the dancefloor, Altering Channels is wildly and viscerally pleasurable, filled with ribcage-vibrating basslines, richly hued synths, and adamantine percussive particulars. In “Set up,” rosy dawn pads clean out the uneven groove whereas a mosquito-beaked synth riff nods concurrently to ’90s Eurodance and Y2K-era dancehall. In “If,” lush organs and jagged synth stabs dial up the distinction across the cut-up vocal, whereas dub-techno chords carve diagonally by means of the combo, as if opening up a shortcut to a special musical dimension. Pangaea delights in mixing up tropes from genres which are hardly ever seen collectively in public. “Gap Away” slathers the buzz-bomb synths of drum’n’bass over a Strictly Rhythm-style NYC home vocal, whereas the coolly driving title monitor is perhaps the reply to a thought experiment: What if Fundamental Channel, however pace storage? Which may sound like an arcane proposition, however there’s nothing nerdy about Altering Channels. Its ultra-vivid palette of tinkling bells and ASMR-grade shakers and hi-hats is virtually Pavlovian, bursting with textures as crisp because the second you placed on new eyeglasses. Membership music this banging is never so nuanced.
Subtlety involves the fore on the penultimate monitor, “Squid,” the place a spidery synth melody rigorously picks its manner throughout a gliding, four-on-the-floor home beat, whereas rigorously manipulated delay and swing settings throw additional kinks within the groove. The vibe is unexpectedly dreamy, nearly bittersweet. The one track right here that’s not angled at peak time, “Squid” is so good that it makes me wish to hear an entire album’s value of Pangaea in contemplative, dewy-eyed mode. However the best way it differs from the remainder of the fabric is a part of what makes the track particular. To underscore that time, Altering Channels goes out with a bang. The closing “Dangerous Strains” is so upbeat it’s virtually cartoonish: a 160-BPM juggernaut of sped-up home pianos and candy-colored trance stabs. It feels nearly tongue in cheek, though realizing McAuley’s roots—lengthy earlier than he obtained into extra rarified types, he taught himself to DJ with laborious home and trance data from his hometown’s HMV—leaves little doubt that his homage is honest. Discover how lovingly he has rendered the style’s over-the-top supersaws and strafing filters: What at first scans as ridiculously additional seems to be, upon nearer inspection, good.
It may appear stunning to listen to Pangaea lock right into a mode that’s swept golf equipment and festivals for some time now; Hessle Audio have prided themselves on being forward of the curve. In a latest interview alongside his co-founders, Ben UFO defined how the label had managed to stay outdoors the blast radius of many dance-music fads: “As a result of we’ve at all times been targeted on music that sounds new to us, we’ve ended up surviving these development spikes. That’s a fantastic place to be in—to have folks count on {that a} shift in movement is perhaps not far away.” In his testomony to the significance of letting free, Pangaea doesn’t simply supply a mild rebuke to the glowering, stone-faced, arms-crossed gatekeepers of the underground. His file can be refreshingly freed from a sense that has plagued the latest craze for chart-pop samples and Eurodance classics: a vaguely guilty-pleasure insinuation of getting away with one thing naughty. Cheeky however by no means corny, Pangaea’s album proves you can get foolish with out sounding silly. Proper all the way down to its title, Altering Channels captures a welcome shift in movement.
