These tracks burn slowly, guttering to points of blackened breaks and bleak acid washes. All the traditional markers of techno are present, but on this scaffold is built something startlingly sinister. Music for misanthropic minds.
I’ve waxed lyrical a few times over the last couple of years for my liking for Love Blast and their deep and incredibly dark sound. To date the label’s mainstays of Lunar Lodge have been centered on the home platform, coming out from the shadows to release a cracking three tracker on Lux Rec back in 2014. Now the partnership of Luciano Lamanna, Filippo Scorcucchi and Filippo Terragni are once again being tempted out of Rome’s back streets, this time by Italy’s Concrete Records.
Like Singularity, another trio of tracks are on offer. “Panacea” is the cruelly titled opener. A cure this ain’t. Instead a brooding sonic pestilence takes to the air. Thuds lap as suffocating static grinds and wraiths wail. A ghostly and haunted atmosphere hangs over the track, an all-encompassing darkness enveloping speakers. “Micron” is a more tactile encounter. That same steady beat structure is present but it is acrid 303 coils that change the mood. Night is still the setting but the track fits more on the floor, albeit one with a malicious mob inhabiting. The closer keeps the acid fires burning but the beast is of a different nature. Malignant and menacing, “Dentro Di Te” lowers the rhythms and lets the squawk do the screaming. Notes are racked, stretched and contorted; bars bleating into submission as the ropes tighten.
The Lunar Lodge palette is a murky one. Shade is shrouded in even more shadow. Lead and ash are the glimmers of light within a total night scape. These tracks burn slowly, guttering to points of blackened breaks and bleak acid washes. All the traditional markers of techno are present, but on this scaffold is built something startlingly sinister. Music for misanthropic minds.
Panacea is available Concrete.
