PANGAEA – HFT005 (Hotflush Two)

 

Pangaea’s Bear Witness is a sonic lesson in suspense, sliding forward with a tentative, stressed rhythm that you could only imagine to be some bunch of archaic, massive, rusting hour and minute arms of an old clock tower shrouded in a mystery of fog… or the churning wheels of a steam engine pushing, bringing us closer to (what?) in both time and space. All this is slathered with a translucent layer of ethereal bell tones- glazing everything with a sense of wonder as we are waiting, biding time in giddy anticipation for whatever it is that Pangaea has to throw at us next in this delicious composition. You wait. Clocks tick, trains chug and bells tease and you get that feeling that something incredibly enjoyable is about to happen…

… and then it comes.

Jaaay-sus. It’s like it’s been swinging high above you like a pendulum this entire time- all of a sudden out of nowhere there’s this sweep like the wind is coming first and then this massively deep, rolling sub-frequency throws the floor out from under you. You’re left giggling unsteady with sheer delight, left to behold this great big swaggering gentleman of a bass-line which is nonchalantly unaware that it’s made such a grand entrance. When this tune drops, everybody pays attention.

There’s something really sexy about Mosaix on the flipside that makes me think of a drop of sweat going on some kind of fantastic 2-step journey around the dark curves of some gorgeous, big Brazilian woman in sweltering heat as she’s wagging her painted pointy fingernail at you, swinging her hip to the side and giving that neck-snap “Don’t you F#$% wit me, Cholo” attitude because you did something wrong but she’s so hot when she’s mad that you’re kind of glad you did it.

Both sides of this release demonstrate Pangaea’s consistent reputation for building tunes that provide a vivid sense of atmosphere and depth and are, at the same time, completely irresistible to dance to. Pangaea’s debut release on HF2 and one of the label’s strongest releases to date. Pick it up if you’re right in the head.