[Moonpool]

Since starting Meerestief Records in 2002, managers Walter Ercolino and Daniela Stickroth have kept busy by expanding into online radio, a booking agency and three sub-labels (Meerestief Rot, Limited and Digital). With Alex Niggemann and Marc Poppcke’s “L’aurora,” the Stuttgart-based label welcomes its fourth sublabel offspring, Moonpool, to the family. Focused on the “house sound of the second half of this decade,” Moonpool makes a sizable splash for its first time out of the gates, even fielding remixes from Swiss sensation Agnès and English techno luminary, Russ Gabriel.

Brief and obscure discographies mean “L’aurora,” a finely constructed and whimsical tune, can potentially be Niggemann and Poppcke’s early claim to fame, at least more than that eye-catching name. From beneath a popping clave/tom beat swells a vivacious raft of strings to pluck tension into the long decaying dub stabs and usher in a dramatic and airy breakdown. Russ Gabriel’s more varied remix adds low end and bends original motifs into a descending progression bouncing from synth to synth, like a body builder showing off each set of painstakingly shaped muscles. But the standout track comes from Agnès. His “Chicago Take” pegs the reverberating stabs to the swinging beat, peppers the underlying swells with fragmented female vocals, and pushes the pulse-quickening string crescendos to accent the tune’s many crests and peaks. Fans of the Diynamic sound, dub-influenced tech-house and Chicago pioneers Ron Trent and Chez Damier all have something to cheer about with Moonpool’s fantastic first single.