Coen - Moshpit

Brussels-based imprint Maloca is proud to present percussive connoisseur Coen’s sophomore mini-album, Moshpit: an 8-track exploration where focus and intensity rules all. As the title suggests, the release marks a more abrasive turn after 2023’s Slop Drop & Roll.

Feeling like a new direction was needed for his second mini-album, Coen went back to his roots. There, the artist re-discovered a love for Slayer and the brutal, near out-of-control power found in thrash metal. Through this recapturing of his teenage years, he found his approach, developing methods for transposing the genre’s raw aesthetics into his stripped back, drum-forward sound.

The result is a listening experience dominated by double-time kicks, corroded walls of texture and a level of intensity not heard before in the London artist’s work. Moshpit acts as an ode to Slayer and the brutal, relentless energy of thrash metal, taking the genre on a conceptual level and translating it into Coen’s universe.

Despite this aesthetic turn, the album also stands as an evolution, rather than a revolution, from Coen. The orotund percussive tones and lethal high energy grooves of Headbanger and Roll Play are nods to 2023 standout Pressure Roll — weapon of choice for DJs across the spectrum including Bonobo, Bambounou, Ahadadream, Toumba & Lu Su.

Moshpit also sees Coen at his most concentrated, distilling what he does best down to its most vital and essential form. Each track bristles with a cinematic, metallic sheen and never feels too busy, with the artist getting the most from recordings of his studio’s collection of percussion instruments — with many of the textures on the album becoming distorted abstractions of drums found in it.

The artwork, made by Coen himself, bristles with coarse texture, without becoming drowned in noise — an appropriate visual guide to the sonic landscape to be found in Moshpit.