Quentin Hiatus:
Sage Mode EP
Free Love Digi
Sporting a cover image oddly reminiscent of the one gracing Mike Oldfield's recent Ommadawn II, Quentin Hiatus's latest EP isn't short on mystery. The info included with the release doesn't solve the puzzle either, though in pitching Hiatus as “the firstborn son of Quintonius, the sage you know as Quentin Hiatus,” who “grew in the womb as a thought in the mind, springing forth like Athena from the skull of Zeus,” the text does at least suggest the release is Hiatus operating in a more reflective mode than usual.
All such enigmas fade away when the attention shifts to the material itself, five drum'n'bass cuts totaling twenty-five minutes. Beats locate the EP thoroughly within the genre, but Hiatus mixes things up by threading vocal figures into the tracks and by bolstering its gleam with layers of keyboard-generated textures.
An ongoing stream of synth arpeggios lends “Star 4,788” an appealing futurama quality, whereas the inclusion of a voice sample gives it a soulful edge, and with a crisp beat providing animation, the cut plays like some serene chillwave-meets-drum'n'bass excursion. Powered by seriously stoked grooves, “And Then Again” and “Social Actavis” situate themselves more centrally within d'n'b without losing any of the opening cut's sparkle in the process, after which “Redeeming” takes us out with four minutes of dizzying synth swirl, ecstatic vocal accents, and a swinging beat pattern.
Though I won't claim to be familiar with everything Hiatus has released, the material on Sage Mode EP seems more polished than what I've heard to date. Whatever rough edges were present earlier have been smoothed out on these atmospheric cuts without diminishing the muscularity of the attack. Stated otherwise, the release shows his music and sensibility to be evolving and growing in sophistication.January 2019