I try to clean some backlog from my e-mail account from 2009 before it grows to alarming proportions. I definitely would not like to miss one of the best releases of the end of 2009, namely Saturation by San Diego-based Misk. Technically speaking this is his full-lenght debut, but he dropped some tunes on vinyl and in digital format on a few dubstep labels last year and you definitely hear that he is not a newcomer to beat-making. His music was supported by e.g. Rob Booth (Electronic Explorations series), XI/Ultragamma, DLX, Starkey. All the compositions on Saturation seem to be very tightly built, flowing smoothly to encompass the listener with really enjoyable sonic textures. Starting from the amazing Subterranean Crawlspace - spacey, glitched out synths, full of bleeps, nice kicks and snares, this track reminds me of Starkey’s ‘gutter bass’ style or wonky excursions of the Lucky Me crew. No wonder Starkey featured this very track in his recent Fact magazine mix. Misk very easily creates beautiful and dreamy landscapes moving from mid-tempo to down-tempo and back, all lighten up by twisted broken beats and neon synths and based on heavy sub-bass, like in Cookies for Breakfast, Maurey, New Orleans or Lizard Lift. I also really dig Misk's experiments in WARP'ish sounding Worms and Fast Food or very deep, unnverving Fur Pants (my personal highlight of this release). In general, this is definitely one of the most consistent and interesting albums of 2009. One can only appreciate the music eclecticisms of Misk and the ease with which the listener can immerse into this music head to toes. You can have it for a mere 5 US$. Don't sleep on this!