Lucy / Rrose

The Lotus Eaters

Image of Lucy / Rrose - The Lotus Eaters
Record Label
Stroboscopic Artefacts

About this item

Lucy and Rrose keep their individual reputations for throught provoking techno intact on this stellar collaboration for Stroboscopic Artefacts. As with both of the artists’ solo offerings, these recordings feel as much like the branching off point for new creative acts rather than as objects to be passively enjoyed. As such, the opening “Chloroform” is a somewhat ironic title for a piece that is anything but anesthetic: at high volumes, its monstrous low-end surge and prickly, scintillating sonic ephemera are very likely to bring attention to otherwise imperceptible phenomena. “Peeling” continues in this style with a more urgent tempo, developing its own cascade of sensory impressions from seemingly unstable deep-bass loops, injections of intentional surface noise, and pitch-shifted / harmonizer-effected phantom phrases. “Stained Glass,” maybe the most straight-ahead piece on the record, is still a potent distortion of the mundane primed with shivering bell tones, tamed feedback and hints of speaker cones fraying. The climactic “Foil Gardens” is an elegant study in harmonics whose time-dissolving ability nods to the works of composers like Charlemagne Palestine or Eliane Radigue, without being a pure homage to either. The undertow of distortion beneath the glistening tone waves, in particular, provides a distinct update to the legacy of so-called
tonal ‘minimalism’. The end result here is a record that feels uncannily lifelike: an organism that always seems on the verge of a heuristic breakthrough, and whose full potential may not even be known by its creators.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Chloroform
A2 Peeling
B1 Stained Glass
B2 Foil Gardens

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