- When we spoke to Deep Medi boss Mala earlier this year, he informed us that his roster had been experimenting with tempos outside of the usual 140 BPM bracket applied to dubstep. Quest's "Smooth Skin" is the first to come off the production line and into record shops. Plodding along at a sedate 94 BPM, it's unlikely to get much club use, which strikes me as a real shame after seeing much of the crowd at Pinch's Dubloaded party become allured by its hypnotic swagger when Quest himself played it as a set-closer. Balancing woozy waves of synths with constantly morphing percussion, the track takes off when the low end is introduced about halfway through, fusing dirty slo-mo arpeggios with clean but full sub-bass surges.
Quest has been on form with his dubstep productions over the last couple of years, especially with the material that has surfaced on Deep Medi, so it comes as no surprise that the flipside track is yet another solid effort. This time he's exploring rolling technoid halfstep, and although it lacks the subtlety of his best material, the trilling 16-bit bleeps and thick bass are enough for it to do its job in the dance. With plenty of non-140 tracks in the pipeline for Deep Medi, dubstep-averse listeners may well want to think twice about ignoring records on the imprint.
Tracklist A Smooth Skin
B Wind Tunnel