- Mark E has a habit of sneaking up on you. (Think surprise party, not creepy.) The slowness for which he's renowned is not just benignly hypnotic, but rather lulling of a false sense of security in which even the most disinclined of dancers are at risk of cocking a groove.
A case in point: the first five minutes of mechanical schleps and gurgles on "Escape" take you nowhere but inwards, to the essence of the throb. The different voices mimic each other's momentum and, like a Newton's cradle for the ears, it's pacifyingly easy to listen to. But then, as submissiveness to Mark's hypno-babble reaches its most docile point, he slaps a bass so big and fretless the sedated reverie comes to an abrupt end. This, in turn, resounds with extra oomph thanks to your new-found appreciation for the throb.
Wait as you might for a similar trick to be pulled from the sleeve of "Midnight Fires," it doesn't come. The setting of a nimble bass and brisk, octave-jumping arpeggios is instantly more gratifying than the start of "Escape," but whereas that track operated a reel-you-in stratagem, this one simply bobs along, unexcitingly content with its own niceness. It's the inaugural release of Vibrations, a label run by Piers Harrison and Christopher Galloway who remix "Escape" under their Roots Unit moniker and turn in a dub version whose arrangement is stripped bare and the instruments are allowed to float in space, lightly foiling, but not outshining, Mark E's sneakily heavy charms.
Tracklist A1 Escape
B1 Midnight Fires
B2 Escape (Roots Unit Remix)