[Halo Beats]

Having been on dub for ages, “On Something” has finally been released on Slaughter Mob’s Halo Beats label. For Damien Russell, aka Toastyboy or Toasty, it’s a departure from his signature style of breaks-influenced dubstep. Unlike earlier productions for Hotflush, Destructive, and Storming, this one doesn’t rely on sampled snares and cold synths, but instead a warm bass line and stuttering kick pattern. After a longish ambient intro, the simple groove is layered with echoing percussion and gives way to a catchy staccato synth melody and swinging hi-hats.

This is the kind of tune that doesn’t necessarily announce to the club that it’s time to dance, but anyone standing within a few meters of the system will certainly be in danger of doing so. It’s also quite headphone-worthy, what with sweeps and swells, well-placed movie dialogue samples, and no two 8-bar phrases the same. “You’re Special” is a bit closer to what one might normally expect from Russell, yet isn’t. A ragga 2-step garage beat drives what is at first a composition of filtered organs and gnarly bass and breaks down to become booming 808’s and atmospheric synths. Whether this is a new direction for Toasty or just an experiment, these two tracks stand out from his catalog, not to mention the genre as a whole.