[Hessle Audio]

One could argue that dubstep traditionally thrives on massiveness: those seemingly infinite bass lines wobbling up from the deep like tsunamis, those scythe-like snares ripping the fabric of the track at each half-step. But in the years since Skull Disco cut its singular path out of wamp-wamp-stomp, producers have become far more willing to manipulate eardrums on a much finer scale. The world’s subwoofers may continue to suffer abuse, but their previously bored tweeter brothers and sisters have found their work on weekend evenings getting a bit more technical. Kevin McAuley, the young Leeds-based producer, DJ, and Hessle Audio co-founder better known as Pangaea, comes from this school of bass music thought, and his soul-soaked singles for Hessle Audio, Hotflush, and — perhaps most memorably — his as-of-this-writing one-off Memories white label have tweezed ecstasy out of a more whispery sound pallet. His burgeoning discography, however, has yet to feature anything as distinctive and defining as what’s on offer over the four sides of his self-titled Hessle Audio doublepack. Quiet remains the new loud, but Pangaea’s wall-hugging sonics beckon you deeper into his fully-formed musical landscape than any of his records — and many of his peers’ records — have before. Witness the birth of a major contender in bass music. Now witness him contending with the lightest of touches.

At the heart of Pangaea’s appeal is his surprisingly un-radical approach to bass music. While his intricate beats, liberally lubricated with deep house and techno, grind forward at manic garage pace, he stops short of the kind of full-on embrace of those genres we’ve seen from the likes of Scuba and Martyn, and he’s also abstained from falling down an Untold-ian rabbit hole. The Pangaea EP sounds like dubstep, and calling it that requires very few caveats or groans about how meaningless that tag is these days. But from the opening measures of “Why,” it’s clear Pangaea wishes to rub, not slap. He sets his cymbals and snares stepping with quick, jazz-like taps, not the smashes of so many Skream-biting meatheads. But you sense he’s after more than just not disturbing the neighbors. Allowed to ring softly, Pangaea’s percussion conveys all kinds of alluringly tiny details while leaving room for equally expressive bass lines and atmosphere. “Sunset Yellow,” caned to great effect by Scuba on his new Sub:stance mix, makes use of this softness brilliantly: unhindered by compositional massiveness, the purple chords of so many recent Hyperdub records can make colorful waves despite broadcasting more ambiently, and from much deeper within the mix, than we’re used to. On “Dead Living,” those same chords return before dissolving into resonance and atonality; their lightness, though, allows the melody to melt down without taking the entire track with it. With such a handle both on his genre and his influences, Pangaea proves a producer doesn’t need big, wacky sounds to make a huge statement.

Still, it’d be easy to imagine Pangaea veering too far into sedateness; Shackleton’s Three EPs, for example, possesses incomparable sonic detail, but it’s a trio of late night records better suited for your bedroom than the club. Pangaea manages to steer clear of all this chin-scratching, and he does it allowing one element to stand confidently in front of his others: ghostly, steamy, nearly orgasmic vocals. On “Why,” a disembodied voice wants us to tell her something, while on “Sunset Yellow,” she wants to get something off her chest without ever managing to elucidate it. And on “Neurons,” an authoritative narrator just wants to freak out anyone who’s pilled up. Executed with great confidence and care, they manage to avoid sounding like the gimmicks such vocals all too often are. Operating neither as chorus nor verse, these disembodied howls magnify the energy so tightly packed within Pangaea’s tense arrangements. Kevin McAuley just wants to make sure you’re paying attention, that you’re feeling these moody burners just as much as he thinks you should. When presented with four sides of dubstep this tantalizing and finely crafted, well-something tells me you won’t need too much convincing to get on board.