The artist identified to the drum & bass world as Moleman has at all times achieved issues his personal manner. Releasing totally on the grassroots label Fat Tape data since he started with this moniker in 2011, Moleman has lived up to his title as he’s typically shirked the limelight and massive labels, preferring to do his personal A&R and work with individuals who help his imaginative and prescient. Hiw music speaks for itself, nonetheless, and he’s nonetheless managed to change into a family title in liquid D&B and is a favourite on Liquicity radio, BBC Radio and 1Extra, DJ Mag, et al.
The upcoming launch of Moleman’s new venture, a full-length LP known as Duality due out this week on July 30, isn’t any exception to his observe document of doing issues his personal manner. He’s self-releasing this 13-track album, which research the 2 completely different sides of his work, therefore the title. The first a part of Duality is extra energetic and pop-driven, whereas the second half is introspective and ambient. Let’s not forged aspersions primarily based on that description, nonetheless: all of the tracks on Duality are nonetheless up to Moleman’s excessive requirements of manufacturing, sound design and flowy, melodic liquid.
The opening observe on Duality, entitled “This Feeling” opens with fairly an existential pattern about notion, so although Moleman considers the second half of the album to be the extra contemplative facet, followers may discover themselves in a deep suppose even whereas they dance to the quick snares, celestial melodies and insane ameny breakdowns. The subsequent observe, “Beautiful Dreamer” has an analogous, semi-trippy spoken phrase opener that will remind some dreampop followers of M83’s earlier work however it’s received that 174 pitch that’s the heartbeat of any D&B head.
174 is actually not the one tempo on Duality. Moleman attracts from his work in different genres to carry dubstep, future bass and even journey hop bits into tracks like “Take On the World” and “Solar Flare.” Every observe is distinctively his, nonetheless, with that immediately recognizable, lighter-than-air sound design and people crisp drumlines. By the tip of the album, listeners may have bee taken on a journey by means of one of the best of liquid D&B and thru the thoughts of Moleman.
YEDM managed to come up with “Starlight,” a celestially-inspired observe from the second a part of Duality which incorporates a few of the quickest secondary snares ever heard juxtaposed with a classic pattern utilized in hip hop and rave music for practically 4 a long time, taken from an audio recording of an viewers member throughout a efficiency of Lyn Collins’s “Think (About It) in 1972. It by some means blends seamlessly into this 2023 liquid observe and provides it that ravey edge for which Moleman is understood.
Duality can be a research on the various manner liquid remains to be a really huge a part of the beating coronary heart of drum & bass, pulling melody and affect from so many bygone eras and turning it into one thing lovely for the fashionable ear. As one of many masters of the subgenre, Moleman will not be solely displaying the various sides of his personal profession however of liquid and drum & bass on the entire. Expect to hear one thing from this album at each pageant and dawn set this season and into the longer term; it’s an instantaneous basic.
Duality drops on July 30 and is offered to pre-order on Bandcamp or to pre-save on Spotify.
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