The club scene has undergone massive changes since recovering from the pandemic oblivion of 2020-2021. The tempos have skyrocketed, as have the moods. Even in corners of the underground where more serious ways once reigned, an insufferable spirit has swept its way, yielding brighter colors and crazier bass. Two Shell can be considered the poster boys for this shift. they started out making relatively low-key DJ gear Livity sound (a UK company whose left-field mission and position loosely aligns with Hessle's) before graduating to their more infamous, helium-fueled hijinks. Pangea mines a neighboring vein of '90s garage and 2-step, and takes a similarly playful approach with his serotonin-boosting vocals.
Whether on or off the track, Change channels it's incredibly enjoyable, full of chest-pounding bass, richly colored synths and diamond-inducing percussive details. On “Installation,” pink sunrise pads smooth out the choppy groove, while a mosquito-beaked synth riff simultaneously nods to '90s Eurodance and Y2K-era ballroom. On “If,” lush instrumentation and jagged synth stabs heighten the contrast around the clipped vocal, while dub-techno chords cut diagonally across the mix, as if opening a shortcut to a different musical dimension. Pangea enjoys mixing tropes from genres rarely seen together in public. “Hole Away” shares drum'n'bass cues with a melodic New York Strictly Rhythm-style vocal, while the laid-back group track might be the answer to a thought experiment: What if the Basic Channel, but speed garage? This may sound like an arcane proposition, but there is nothing wrong with it Change channels. Its ultra-vibrant palette of jingling bells and high-quality ASMR shakers and hats is practically Pavlovian, filled with textures as crisp as the moment you put on new glasses. Club music this beat is rarely so subtle.
Subtlety comes to the fore on the penultimate track, “Squid,” where a cobwebbed synth melody carefully picks its way over a swinging, four-on-the-floor beat, while carefully crafted delay and swing arrangements throw further twists into the groove. . The vibe is unexpectedly dreamy, almost bittersweet. The only song here that doesn't sound cornered at peak time, “Squid” is so good it makes me want to listen to an entire album's worth of Pangea in brooding, cool mode. But the way it differs from the rest of the material is part of what makes the song special. To emphasize this point, Change channels goes out with a bang. Closer “Bad Lines” is so upbeat it's practically cartoonish: a 160 BPM juggernaut of sped-up pianos and candy-colored trance stabs. It looks like almost tongue in cheek, though knowing McAuley's roots – long before he dabbled in rarer styles, he taught himself to DJ hard house and trance records from his hometown HMV – leaves no doubt that his homage is sincere . Notice how lovingly he's rendered the genre's supersaws and strafing filters: What initially sweeps so ridiculously Furthermore turns out, upon closer inspection, to be exactly right.
