Who is Haymack? is he an interplanetary explorer or an AWOL astronaut free-falling to his next destination (‘ocean drive’ perhaps)? this ep doesn’t plot his story, but if the track listing is any indication i believe h.mack bounces (galactic) and hustles (radar). in any case, the escape to venus ep is all wobbly lounge driven space funk, like a narcoleptic Drexciya or if Groove Armada reattached their balls and dropped the cooing r&b starlets. it’s good, maybe great, & i want more.
Following the propelling space disco of ”Space Romance”, Escape to Venus (Beirut-based artist Ribal Rayess) abandons his sly deadpan vocals and dives headfirst into water on other planets. Indeed, water moves freely underneath these cold martian surfaces: ”Destination Ocean Drive” is languid deep house buoyed by tribal drum patterns while “Galactic Bounce” zooms through an undersea tunnel of wicked bass stabs and watery synthlines. ”Radar Hustle” ends the EP on a more traditional note, with some nice ARP layering over a steady 4/4 beat, recalling the house elements of his first single. The character Haymack is still a mystery, but his interplanetary music is pretty outstanding.