- Bass, breaks and brawny beauty on Holding Hands' first release of 2023.
- When Liam Wachs, AKA Desert Sound Colony, launched Holding Hands towards the end of the last decade, it was a transitional period for the UK underground. On the one hand, bottom-heavy techno continued its ascent beyond its Bristol home base. On the other, a leaner tech house-indebted strand of the genre was being pulled out of Ibiza bro purgatory thanks to a new wave of crate diggers. Holding Hands straddled that divide. Wachs had a dance floor revelation seeing Nicolas Lutz perform at fabric in 2015 and, years later, decided to reissue the best of Bushwacka!'s influential tech house catalog. All the while, his roots in dubstep meant he remained a dyed-in-the-wool devotee of all things bass (it also helped that Jossy Mitsu was A&Ring for the label). The label's first record of 2023, an EP from Leipzig duo not even noticed, is exactly what this middle ground sounds like. All four tracks are swung and funky enough for the heads, but with the crystalline sound design and bassweight you'd expect on a Livity Sound record.
Don't You Dare contrasts mazes of gnarled and metallic sub bass and breakbeats with melodies undulating with the patient beauty of a mountain sunrise. Sitting at 147 BPM, "Step Aside" is a serious piece of club machinery softened by a single note melody that lazily bounces across the top. The title track takes this juxtaposition even further—a colossal bassline staggers across a chopped breakbeat before dubby chords and a euphoric acid line pirouette across the mid and high end. Even on the full-on jungle assault of "Sacrificed," the final half of the track features a gated chord breakdown worthy of a teary-eyed closing slot. not even noticed have been working on this dramatic contrast in the stereo field since they started putting out records on labels like Craigie Knowes and Chat Noir. Don't You Dare is their most striking yin-and-yang yet, weaving low-end swagger with heartstopping melodies.
Tracklist01. Don't You Dare
02. Step Aside
03. Sacrificed
04. Petulant