- Though many UK producers in the past year have been making moves towards explicitly retro Chicago house, London's Mosca has set his sights on something more continental than the Windy City. He hinted at it with the taut techno-informed grooves of last year's Wavey EP and goes full-bore on his first release of 2012, his debut on Hypercolour.
Just like "Bax" last year, "Eva Mendes" has been getting a considerable amount of dubplate hype, perhaps surprising for such a straight-laced house track. But the proof lies in the track's deepest nether regions: Mosca's brand of tech house doesn't lack any of his previous music's considerable low-end impact, and "Eva Mendes" rides suave and nimble kicks over a tectonic bassline that thuds and skips underneath, the kind of thing that might weigh down any other producer's tracks. Couple that with throwback rave samples and a deranged, lightheaded chord progression and it wiggles into a loopy banger, striking an uncommon medium between tracky and anthemic.
"Accidentally" takes the bottom-heavy template and drops an anvil on it, a pseudo-techno writher repurposed into bouncy broken house. Robert Owens bleats his signature phrases all over the track, lending the throb a layer of pop that turns its low-end from menacing to Hot Creations-esque sleazy. "Murderous" also goes the vocal route, as an uncredited UK vocalist armed with a lighthearted croon duels with the track's dulcet mallet melody. Working with vocalists for the first time, Mosca conquers yet another genre with another accomplished release.
Tracklist A1 Eva Mendes
A2 Accidentally feat. Robert Owens
B1 Murderous (Vocal)
B2 Murderous (Dub)