- Another year, another little EP from Moonbase (formerly Moonbase Commander - did the makers of the 2002 videogame finally send a cease and desist?). These little tasting menus are pretty-much unique to Moonbase: he gathers up a bunch of MCs and divas and gussies up a small selection of vocal-bass bangers. More substantial than a producer slinging another single on Soundcloud but never committing to a full album, it fits with the image of someone who’s got a bit to say but doesn’t want to be shackled to the sound of the scene at the time. For all that this is a guy everyone expects to be bass-heavy, he’s pretty light on his toes.
The first cut off Avalanche is pretty fair evidence for that: Moonbase shrugs off those last year HudMo comparisons by leaping twenty years back in time into a bassline jam. He’s resurrected UK Garage’s lesser known sibling to celebrate a collaboration with Derby MC Eyez. Much like Moonbase's 2016 team-up with Chicago MC Mikey Dollaz was to the old gangsta sound, Everyday Raver is to grime: as geezer as you’d expect, to the point of cliché. That’s okay because the electro beats snap and the bass bangs.
For all that, Moonbase has never really fully embraced the excesses of bass music. Another meeting with Miss Blanks is proof of this. Blanks, whose very byword is excess, just adorably over-the-top, is spitting at top speed on Flavour. I hear the choice of beat was actually hers but it's a surprisingly restrained affair, all ghostly and ethereal. It sounds less like a dancefloor anthem and more of a shared secret; being Miss Blanks I'm sure it's a dirty one, natch. Also, I guess this is from a while ago, because she’s still namechecking him as Moonbase Commander, too. I guess that shows this is a durable partnership - you can hear Moonbase beats on Miss Blanks’ last record and the pair do have a genuine chemistry.
Moonbase identifies Twisted Metal, the only non-vocal cut on the EP, as one of the most technically, or rather technologically experimental. Using a bunch of borrowed hardware he adds a lot of background atmosphere, but, perhaps in an effort to keep himself grounded, wraps it around the most straight-down-the-line trap-dance you can imagine.
The same cannot be said of the final cut, Over U. Joined by Gold Coast vocalist DVNA, Moonbase doses the experience with a little of his signature bass, but otherwise this is deep-house with a rather frisky syncopation, which is maybe another nod to UK Garage? Paradoxically, it also gives the track a cosmopolitan, euro feel as much as anything else. Most importantly it’s really fun and very well done. In the understated words of DVNA “I cannot complain.”
Moonbase describes Avalanche as a “transitionary period” a “point of renewal.” As usual with his little releases, I’m left wondering exactly where he’s transitioning too. The house tip, particularly, is an exciting development, but I get the feeling that in a year Moonbase’ll be back, still changing it up, floating like a bass-heavy butterfly, without being bothered to sting us for real, like a badass bee.
- Chris Cobcroft.