EP Review: Various Artists – Planet Socool

Curated by Andy ‘Epicentre The Dragon’ and Emily Socool, and out on the formers Dragon Trax imprint is a compilation of some of the best in new liquid drum & bass, featuring artists from Sheffield, Vancouver and Edinburgh.

Vancouvers Socool is joined by fellow Canadian DJ Soo for the EP opener Yay Baby, and it’s a fantastic take on atmospheric jungle, with this gluey bassline, electronic hue and sparkling synth lines that all collide to make something joyous and equally beautiful. It’s also works in a playful sample they recorded when the pairs daughter was playing Mario Kart. Sheffield’s Charla Green is in the remix for the second track, throwing in a bit more beans to the party, as well as this sprawling drumline and and edgier bassline that pulls you up by the collar and leave you floating with these huge drops.

Lost At Sea is drum & bass / breakbeat veteran Uphonix’s contribution to the EP. Built on these slightly melancholic, soulful little melodic ideas, which develop and start to morph into some of his trademark piano led lines. It has this rather brilliant ebb and flow about it, rather like – we’ll, the sea really, that builds in density before it’s leaves you at the end with these bare chords to finish.

Penumbra follows on by Socool given a clean electronic workout on the remix by JG Stockton. Outwardly more electro focused than the other tracks on the EP, there’s still plenty of layered melody and this brilliantly cool popping bassline that drives everything forward.

The EP closes with Edinburgh producer and remixer Edward Sparks ‘I told you’. More oblique than the other tracks, it hides its jewels from plain sight, its ambient melodies and textures only revealing their beauty when the beat drops out, and then flowering into something that massages the feels inside you. Lovely stuff.