(08.14.05) There was a huge buzz surrounding Peter M Kersten’s latest release as Lawrence. Hardly surprising for this former gardener whose diverse and prodigious talent garners praise from Kompakt’s Wolfgang Voigt. Kersten frequently records under various pseudonyms and styles; doing abstract hip-hop as Lloyd, ambient guitar as Bordeaux and straight up minimal techno as Sten. He’s built an impressive back catalogue and his own Hamburg based Dial Rec, is on fire right now. To put it mildly this LP has a lot to live up to.
Like fellow techno producer Carl Craig, Kirsten creates an entire world for the appreciative ear to wallow in; drawing comparisons with other microhouse producers such as Matthew Dear on Ghostly International and Matthew Herbert on Accidental. With his piano chords and strings he constructs a vista of long shadows, suspense, and great beauty; the aural equivalent to a Hitchcock thriller.
This really is House music for people who don’t like House music.
He avoids anthemic hooks and hackneyed vocals, preferring to take Detroit hero, Theo Parrish’s bare-bones mixture of disco grooves and funk, wrapping it in the kind of gloom you’d associate with The Cure. His previous album, The Absence of Blight, references the Smiths with it’s opening track “15 Minutes With You.”
You could easily say …Blight was his best work; it’s certainly the album that defined the Lawrence sound. But what makes this release special is the sense of relief found on tracks like “Along The Wire” and the heavily remixed “Swap.” This brings light to his tracks, it’s a definite step forward, but not a departure from what made makes Lawrence great.
So, Kersten’s has done it again with another piece of classy sleepy house. If you don’t like house music you don’t know what you are missing, seriously, and you need to buy this. If you do like house music, then you should already own this.
The Night Will Last Forever is out now on Novamute.
