The title track plays largely to the Smigonaut sound, emphasizing a glitch hop rhythm and swagger, and plunking out a midi melody cobbled from snare rims. The fuzzy distortion on the midbass shines bright as a firm halftime presence. They create a funky time signature and squeeze these sounds into unpredictable shapes, pitches, and patterns. By contrast, the crowded cacophony in “Scale the Perimeter”, while frenetic, is a short-lived two minutes and 20 seconds of tightly-wound go-hard with no wonky side-trips. The track has a distinct DeeZ halftime feel, introducing heavier flow through furious drum breaks. Smigonaut’s influence is felt in the occasional Mario-sounding chiptune throwback.

The truly majestic fusion that illustrates the potential of DeeZNauts appears on lead-off single “Escape Pod”. The contemplative synth wanders through a dark and spacey halftime dub with a quickly shuffling snare pattern, while textural elements are brought to the fore. After ambience is built with wood percussion and echo chambers, the final third drops into a growling space engine that shifts gears and blasts the listener into a different headspace. This track, the most balanced of the bunch, tells its story well. “Observatory”, a collaboration with Hullabalo0, is the wildcard of Disruptor. It presents a smattering of lounging solos in keys and guitar, while a smoky crowd speaks leisurely over a reverb-dipped sax. The rhythm is almost an afterthought, a structure to prop up the smooth jazz experiment with sweet melodies to swim through while soft fuzz'n'pop moments resonate with a vinyl nostalgia.

With Disruptor, DeeZNauts establishes itself as a new force of bass magic, a stunning challenge to co-create your art with neighboring aesthetics, and a testament to the influence the pair of producers have on one another. This EP is a brilliantly curated listen that emphasizes every element of the combination in turn, speaking its story in a scant four tracks but wasting no time. Armed with a diverse spell book of new music and a name sure to elicit laughs when read off a lineup, DeeZ and Smigonaut declare here their continued commitment to the craft and culture.

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