Lakker Monad XIV

Following their remix for Dadub on Stroboscopic Artefacts’ Preternity release, Irish duo Lakker return with their first full release for the label: Monad XIV. SAM014 is four tracks of deep techno laced with unhappy precipitation.

The EP opens with ‘Dryad’, a track which starts as a menacing sea and ends as an unforgiving storm. The high-end sounds are but low clouds – rumbling, teetering, encircling. ‘Dryad’ gives way to ‘Nevada’, a track teeming with as much menace as unashamed groove. A heavy and affected bass drum pounds beneath a cheerful arpeggio, eventually overcoming the melody with discordant force.

‘Asvattha’ presents an image for the most ideally haunting night: bitter darkness, laced with rain. Not heavy; not fast; just persistent. It clangs off pipes, it drums on steel roofs. It embeds. To end, it’s ‘Artificial Weather’. What begins as a gentle shower becomes a disorientated swirl, the aural definitions of ambient techno shattered by the sound of machinery and water clashing.

This is a determined and disturbed end to a record which pushes sonic limits, combining dramatic meteorological dissonance with bitterly glorious moments of melody.

1. Dryad
2. Nevada
3. Asvattha
4. Artificial Weather