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to listen to their music now on Will Saul just can’t seem to take a wrong step lately. His two labels, Simple and Aus are at the forefront of the tech house and minimal/experimental scenes respectively, and his productions just keep getting better and better. Naturally then, his latest track, ‘Pause’, is a fantastic slice of deep, electronic tech house, which is remixed in to a wicked minimal groove by Isolee on the flip side.
The original mix of ‘Pause’, although low on the BPMs, is chock full of energy and is aimed squarely at the dancefloor, primarily thanks to its stabby electronic bassline, dark synths and punchy percussion. The track starts off with just the bassline bubbling away for a few bars before a tough kick is added to the mix, which is later accompanied by some crisp hats and snares, which fill out the track nicely but don’t overcomplicate it. The bassline slowly morphs and changes its sequence as the track continues to build its heavy groove. A dark, even somewhat nasty synth, reminiscent of the main line from Ame’s ‘Rej’ is then added briefly, before the track drops in to a short breakdown. After this it jumps back in to its dark groove, this time however with a stronger bassline, some reverbed clicks and pops, sinister, brooding synth washes and the synth line that was briefly introduced in to the track prior to the breakdown. For the remainder of the track, more and more percussively layers are slowly added to the mix, and Saul cranks up the bassline, main synth and atmospherics slowly and almost unnoticeably, creating a track that builds steadily to a peak without losing its groove – a difficult thing to achieve. Unfortunately, the track does drop out all a little too early, making it a bit difficult to mix cleanly, but it’s so good that a small issue like that hardly matters.
On the flip Isolee turn in a deeper, funkier remix of ‘Pause’, more suited to the wee hours of the morning with its subtle groove, warm bass and (dare I say it) uplifting synths. There isn’t much by way of an intro on this one, with the bassline quickly being faded in to the track, before being accompanied by some warm, deep synth washes and a deep stabby sub bass. The kick and percussion are just the slightest bit out of time with each other, creating an interesting overlap of sounds. The earlier part of the track is characterised primarily by the groove created by the deep bass and synth washes, however plenty of atmospherics, clicks, beeps and squeaks and even some extra synths come in and out of the mix to keep it fresh. The tune then continues to build on its basic groove for a couple of minutes, increasing the intensity of the bassline and synths washes, as well as adding an echoed and cut up version of the main synth from the original mix, before dropping in to a brief breakdown, after which it completely changes direction. The bassline changes to a stabby synth bass, a squeaky acid line is added, the synth washes change keys, and another synth line is later brought in to complete the groove. From here, the track continues to chug along before suddenly reverting back to the original groove from the first portion for the final minute or so. Like the original, there’s little to outro to speak of, so any DJs out there should take some time to really learn this track back to front to make mixing out of it that much easier.
If you’re a Will Saul fan, don’t pass this up. If you’re a fan of good deep tech house and minimal, don’t pass this up.
