After 2016’s A Shot in the Light, DJ, producer and Disco Halal labelrunner Chen Moscovici has leaned full-tilt into synth-pop and, with Time Slips Away, has created a collection that’s both carefully placed and cleverly paced. Alternating between solo tracks and collaborative songs, the album is stuffed full of vocal hooks and earworm moments that have long been hinted at in the producer’s past work but never been this fully realised.
That’s not to say that fans of Moscoman’s more four-to-the-floor outings need to look elsewhere for their fix, there’s plenty here that fits the bill. Interspersed between lighter, more human moments, tracks such as “Maker Breaker Faker Taker” and “Sense of Time” offer a yin to the yang, while bringing blackout blinds to the party to block out the dawn.
By alternating between dizzyingly infectious pop songs and dancefloor-centred tracks, Moscovici creates welcome shifts in momentum. It’s a world away from the seamless, one-note throb that governs much of what passes for dance music and much more in keeping with his own tirelessly inventive DJ sets, which veer from traditional music to techno classics and forward-thinking four-to-the floor edits – often within the space of three songs
Moscoman’s guests have clearly been given freedom to stamp their personality over these tracks and it’s a freedom that has reaped rewards. “What Do We Care”, featuring Teleman’s Thomas Sanders, sounds like it’s arrived straight from a live PA at the Blitz club, while Korean/British band Wooze bring their rhythmic lyrical intonation to two tracks. “Eyes Wide Strut” and “Natural Born Losers”, both benefit from the duo’s idiosyncratic delivery – storytelling with an art-punk funk infusion.
The album’s high water mark however comes with “Myths Still Exist”, a collaboration with singer Niki Kini. The teenager’s clarity of tone and ear for beautifully bruised melody pair perfectly with Moscovici’s rolling groove and guitar-led inflections, producing something akin to pop alchemy. It sits at the centre of an album that happily veers back and forth between two worlds with such a consistent commitment to quality that you don't even notice the joins.
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