Reissue of ‘House Without A View’, the out-of-print second album by singer-songwriter Lande Hekt – the first of a three-part reissue series on Circuitry, with ‘Going To Hell’ and ‘Gigantic Disappointment’ (first time physically) to follow in the coming months.

With a new album ‘Lucky Now’ released on Tapete in January, Lande’s contemporary twist on the classic C86 indie sound - with a queer feminist punk identity lyrically explicit throughout – completely won us over in Picc HQ, so we're buzzin that their back catalogue is getting a spotlight.

The opening track of the album is ‘Half With You’ which “is about growing into yourself as a queer person, and enjoying who you are after not enjoying it for so long,” says Lande. ‘Cut My Hair’ is about how her relationship with her gender has changed over the last few years, becoming more comfortable in herself and understanding more about what makes her happy. “It’s also about how easy it is to not talk to people when you’re struggling, which is something I did for a long time,” admits Lande.

The title track of ‘House Without a View’ deals with childhood trauma and how events of our formative years “affect us so much into our adult lives and are intrinsic to our personalities and the way we cope (or don’t) with life and relationships,” says Lande. Although there’s darkness and sadness within the record, there’s also some shining beacons of positivity and a light-hearted side, albeit with a side of frustration. ‘Lola’ was written about Lande’s cat shortly after she came to live with her and her girlfriend. “She’s the first pet I’ve ever had and I wasn’t quite ready for how hard it would be to not be able to verbally communicate with her. I worried constantly that she was depressed because all she did was sleep, but my girlfriend assured me that that was regular cat behaviour.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Half With You
2. Backstreet Snow
3. Cut My Hair
4. Gay Space Cadets
5. Always Hurt
6. House Without A View
7. Ground Shaking
8. What Could I Sell
9. Lola
10. Take A Break
11. First Girlfriend

Made with his friends Henriette Motzfeldt & Catharina Stoltenberg (solo and together as Smerz), Copenhagen-based composer/producer Fine Glindvad (who records as Fine), and Valeria Litvakov, "Forever" is built around juxtaposition: pop and bass brushing shoulders with dopamine fueled EDM. The record is a funhouse of mirrors where polystyrene arpeggios skitter underneath uplifting chords.

As Hekt describes the record: "Forever is desire and digital synthesis, car rides and lingering perfume. It’s missing someone who was never really there, holding on to something you didn’t want in the first place. The songs you hear when you’re falling in love on the dancefloor, and the songs you hear when you open your eyes and realize it’s just you alone with the DJ, the last one to leave. Songs to make out and break up to. A party so good you get depressed it can’t last forever."

"Forever" is a continuation of Hekt's work exploring the emotional core of pop music. "Someday" is the soundtrack to a hundred imagined futures with strangers in the club, as pristine arps and heartswelling chords skitter under Valeria Litvakov's ruminations, both lovestruck and terrified. Smerz add a level of fantastic to the slanted otherworldly pop of "Up in the Air, So" and "Forever." On both tracks, the melodies are squishy and impressionistic, the sound of all those memories we make in dance floors, taxis home, and in the blurry morning sunshine as we adjust to reality.

And while guest vocalists abound on "Forever", Hekt also takes a turn at the mic himself. On "Without You" he shakes up a perfectly mixed cocktail of melancholy and beauty. And on "Promise" his voice is turned into another melodic accent against the fragile IDM sound design. Elsewhere he turns up the aggro. Dueting with Catharina Stoltenberg on Boys Noize's secret weapon, "Anytime Anywhere," the two trade bars across a compressed field of static and feedback while little hints of sub and wiry synths circle the edge of the stereo.

Hekt's music has always attempted to redefine what club music can and might be. This reimagining of the very basic building blocks of the dance floor is felt across "Forever" where he leans into the emotions of 2010s EDM. "What I loved about hardstyle and jumpstyle was the emotional intensity that kind of music can bring if you’re in the right setting. And I think that is what has stuck with me from EDM too. Emotional intensity," he explains. "It’s just been the soundtrack to some of the most fun moments in my life." On "But I Can't Really Show You," he compresses the EDM-era into 3-minutes. Vocal catharsis, dubstep womp, and soaring chords make it sound like the entirety of Tomorrowland being processed through MAX/MSP. This Skrillex-meets-Calvin Harris colossus is designed to destroy every sub woofer as it pulls on every last heart string.

And then there are the straight-up club stompers. "Baby" is UK club music reimagined with the steely lines of Danish modernism - think DJ Q going b2b with Errorsmith. It has a bassline made out of flubber with a vocal chopped beyond recognition as it bounces across chromatic synth lines. Even when he strips things down on the slinky garage-esque "Big Things," there are still unexpected twists and turns. The melody sounds like an Ibiza House compilation played in reverse, alongside drums that swing in and out of psilocybin bleeps and bloops. On other tracks like "Dream" and "You Won't Believe," the tropes of dance musics past, present, and future are dissolved in baths of synthesis and polished sound design.

"Forever" is a record where club music and Scandinavian EDM seamlessly mixes into avant-garde pop. Hekt has crafted singular and unclassifiable love songs alongside effortless bangers, making an ode to those eternal dance floor moments where time stops and you start hoping for something big.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hekt & Valeria Litvakov - Someday
A2. Hekt - Up In The Air, So
A3. Hekt - Baby
A4. Hekt - Without You
A5. Hekt - Beautiful
A6. Hekt - You Won’t Believe
B1. Hekt - Big Things
B2. Hekt & Smerz - Forever
B3. Hekt - Anytime Anywhere
B4. Hekt - Promise
B5. Hekt - Dream
B6. Hekt - But I Can’t Really Show You
B7. Hekt - Just Like You Said

Lande Hekt has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her 2021 debut full-length Going To Hell and 2022’s House Without a View, she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses and The Beths. Her new album Lucky Now, written and recorded with producer Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back), reflects the most mature and confident version of Lande Hekt yet. “I’m not as concerned about how I’m presenting myself,” Hekt says. “I’ve tried to think less about how things are coming across, and just write songs that make me feel connected to myself and what I value.”

Hekt’s musical touchstones — The Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements — remain the same, but at the same time she’s delved deeper into other influences. Lucky Now is indebted to 1980s twee-pop and jangle-pop like The Pastels, Tallulah Gosh and The Bats, plus more modern iterations of the sound such as Autocamper and Jeanines, in its ecstatic, soaring melodies and gorgeous, tactile guitars. The sound is fitting for Hekt’s new lyrical outlook, where, though despair and anxiety rear their heads, she digs deep to find the gratitude. “I wanted to try and push for something slightly more positive, which I’m trying to do more of generally — just to not fall apart,” Hekt says.

In keeping with that, opening track “Kitchen ii” is a love song about sharing simple, domestic moments with a partner, while “Rabbits” is a song about hope inspired by one summer solstice spent on Glastonbury Tor. Meanwhile, the slower, acoustic-based “Middle of the Night” is about “reeling from a realisation of being properly happy for the first time in my life,” Hekt says. Hekt also returns to more politically-based songwriting, after largely avoiding politics in both life and music during a disillusioned period, on “Circular” (“they change the law like it’s a game and we’re the pawns getting played”) and “A Million Broken Hearts”. “If you get swept up in the notion that being politically engaged in any way is embarrassing, that is so dangerous,” Hekt says now. “It’s really important to try and find a way to reject that.”

During the process of making the album, Hekt also moved from Bristol back to her hometown of Exeter. She wrote Lucky Now’s closing track, “Coming Home”, about the experience of returning there after a long tour; smelling the familiar smells, spotting the familiar faces. In a lot of ways, Lucky Now is about return — return to joy, return to places and parts of the self once left behind. Who you once were can seem unreachable, but sometimes you can build a bridge.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Airy jangling indie music rendered in chorused guitars and throbbing bass, beautifully bolstered with distorted thrust and a slowly building wash of haze. Hekt's evocative vocals flutter and drift with the soaring melodic line, providing the perfect bolster to the airy backdrop. A wonderfully emotive, beautifully executed ride.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Kitchen II
A2 Lucky Now
A3 Rabbits
A4 Favourite Pair Of Shoes
A5 Middle Of The Night
B1 Circular
B2 A Million Broken Hearts
B3 My Imaginary Friend
B4 The Sky
B5 Submarine
B6 Coming Home

Introducing "Beautiful", a 4-track, club-focused EP by Copenhagen’s Hekt on Numbers. It hints at his mass appeal while featuring club-ready vocal collaborations from close friends Henriette (on "Beautiful" and "You Won’t Believe") and Catharina (on "Anytime Anywhere"), who together record as Smerz.

Working entirely without samples, Hekt is a sculptor wielding digital synthesis and sticky hooks, with each element carefully constructed from the ground up and the process just as important as the finished result. 'It’s about trying to be honest with what I like at every level,' he says. 'To maximise the points where I'm forced to check in with my feelings on each aspect of the songwriting, sound design, mixing, and any other aesthetic choice. Creating digital approximations tilts towards an uncanny space where everything is crystal-clear but also kind of warped.'

On opening track “Beautiful”, the descending bass and acid lines are inspired by tracks Hekt and friends used to test subwoofers in the cars they rode around during their teenage years. “You Won’t Believe” started off as a MIDI piano sketch that accelerated towards the epic emotional impact of EDM stadium-fillers like Avicii and Eric Prydz. In a playful nod to internet culture, Hekt recalls that 'I had this idea for adding a vocal that played on YouTube thumbnails and self-promotion. I called Henriette when she was in France and asked her to phrase it as epic as possible, and she sent two ideas over for "Beautiful" and "You Won’t Believe".'

On "Anytime Anywhere", Hekt reimagines his sound at 110 BPM. What began as studio experiments morphed from Neptunes or Timbaland-style productions into a crunchy pressure overload closer to Gescom via Lazer Dim 700, with Hekt also adding his own vocals.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Numbers return after a short hiatus with the futuristic post-rave sound of Hekt. Ramping up the BPMs and the sidechained compression to create a heady nightclub broth that'll have kids on drugs swinging from the rafters and regretting their life decisions come Monday morning.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Beautiful
A2. You Won’t Believe
B1. Anytime Anywhere
B2. Dream (Dub)

Picture a post-apocalyptic world where a renaissance beckons – it’s dark and gloomy but optimistic as a new existence gets set to reign. It’s these visuals that shutter through your brain when listening to Hektor’s new song, ‘Monday’.

The track has been lifted from the Melbourne producer’s forthcoming EP, Rituals, dropping on Friday May 1 through new independent label No Exit Records. Fans of the similarly-ambient Kiasmos or Willaris. K will have a field day with Hektor’s new works, which are inspired by a classical music background.

It’s Hektor’s penchant for the spacious and elusive that creates a record that’s truly cinematic. Musically, Hektor brings together a raft of samples, field recordings, analogue synths and drum machines to manifest supernatural moments that are both adventurous and daring.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There is something to be said here for the comparisons to Kiasmos / Early rival consoles / Hopkins etc, but it only goes part way to explaining the euphoric mash-up of nu-rave, shadowy electronics and artful production. It's a banger and wouldn't go amiss at a sweaty (post-covid) rave with a head full of serotonin.

TRACK LISTING

1. Monday
2. Frank
3. Interlude
4. Joy Ride.