Elevation/ENO-UGH review on Resident Advisor

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4/5

The first solo record from New York producer, studio boss and university professor Phil Moffa comes through Most Excellent Unltd. It’s the third release for the label since its launch almost a year ago, and for Moffa (who’s a regular contributor to RA’s tech section), it follows a handful of collaborations and one-off cuts over the past couple years. If Moffa and Most Excellent Unltd. aren’t yet on your radar, they should be with the release of this four-tracker.

Both “Elevation” and “ENO-UGH” are wonderfully atmospheric yet confidently insistent, each setting out on its path with a lone kick drum and warm, panoramic synth tones. “Elevation” grows continually denser, and there’s an edge-of-your-seat feeling as its percussion and synths build and then merge into silence before the late drop. “ENO-UGH” is a slower cut of immersive, ambient-ish techno. Here, sticking with just one kick and a few low beeps as propulsion, Moffa carves out deep and darkly reverberating spaces, then assembles a towering array of fluttery, emotionally charged synths.

Those two original tracks each come accompanied by a shorter version. As you might gather from the name, “Elevation (Beats)” turns up the drums and lops off just about everything else. It exposes the gritty inner workings of Moffa’s sound, and it’s a nice little jam, though at barely three minutes long, it’s also kind of a tease. “ENO-UGH (Recital),” on the other hand, drops the percussion and drifts further into epic, windswept ambiance, completing with a flourish a very fine record from Moffa.

Published /
Sun / 17 Aug 2014
Words /
Brian Kolada