When Circus Records co-founder and “Bass Cannon” instigator Flux Pavilion turned back to the EP format in January, we were not alone in celebrating an extended body of work from this British powerhouse. Now past a collaborative turn alongside Dan Le Sac & Scrobius Pip and merciless North American tour duties, the man lesser known as Joshua Steele returns a five-strong collection of cuts from his highly evolved creative guise.

Where Steve Aoki collaboration “Steve French” marries the two producers’ sounds into an inoffensive low-end electro romp, Rosie Oddie joins on ‘Gold Love’ to pack the kind of radio-friendly dubstep fundamentals that made brief hang time on the UK charts two years before – a sound still wielded masterfully by Flux and his ever-expanding studio guise. As two of the more accomplished moombah advocates to remain buoyant to the modern market, “I’m The One” rings with the reassuringly bouncy tendencies that you would expect in the union of Flux and Dillon Francis – two comparably innovative breakouts from severely different sides of the world. Title track “Freeway” takes a warm and melodic u-turn on this otherwise high octane short-player, offering the perfect pre-game breath of air before striking Turin Breaks collaboration ”Mountains and Molehills” rocks seven shades off of the archetypal dub-rock crossover, forging something of a ‘Muse-meets-Skrillex’ finale to this diverse body of work.

Like most buzz genres of the time, dubstep has grown a lot since expanding from the underbelly of Croydon, UK. Flux Pavilion is no exception. Throughout the Freeway EP, familiar boundaries are found, noted and squashed under an overlying thirst to push things forward – not bad for the genre that artists across the globe have rushed to see the casket closed on. Owing to a bigger movement in bass music and those that found their feet under the coinage of dubstep, the Freeway EP is everything we could hope to expect from the future of this genre. Flux Pavilion evidently has his agenda for the future tapped – one that few of the bass-savoring dispositions are likely to contest.

Purchase: Beatport

Tags: circus records, Dillon Francis, flux pavilion, Freeway, Freeway EP, Steve Aoki, Turin Breaks

Categories: Music