- Mosca has hardly traced a straight line through dance music since he surfaced in 2010, but with the launch of his Not So Much label he's disappeared down a rabbit hole. Where his earlier work had traces of UK garage and heavy bass music in its DNA, the newer stuff taps into something darker and loopier. Mosca exists between scenes these days, taking the muted sheen of classic dub techno and fusing it with the druggy dynamics of peak-era minimal.
The fourth Not So Much record offers two of the most seamless examples of this style yet. "No, We're Not A Couple," with its flanged drum track and topsy-turvy bassline, is a ride so bumpy it could cause motion sickness. On the flipside is "White Mice," a banging afterhours jam that calls back to Mosca's Basic Channel-worshipping last EP, full of distantly booming chords and aqueous textures. "Cortisol" is punchier, even with a sickly synth melody that plays like a deflating balloon. NSM004 is a reminder that dance music can be minimal and loopy without lacking personality; in fact, the EP oozes with it, from the wonky synth leads to the strangely graceful arc of its basslines. Mosca wraps it all in a package you could drop into just about any set.
TracklistA1 No, We're Not A Couple
A2 Cortisol
B1 White Mice