Lakker

Review: To celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary, Blueprint has delved deep into its back catalogue. "Post Traumatic Son", a collaboration between label owner James Ruskin and Karl O'Connor, features three times in remixed form, with DVS1 dropping a deep take, Robert Hood turning the track into an angular, metallic jacker and Marcel Dettmann remodelling it into a grainy Berghain stomper. In as much as dance floor tracks like "Son..." and the coruscating, gnarly rhythm of Outline's "Encounter" have defined the label since the start, so too does its more abstract work. A shadow of textured sound looms over Ruskin's "Correction Centre A"; Samuel Kerridge's "Operation Neptune" is a trip into the world of grungy electronics, while Lakker's "Static & Amp" fuses haunting vocals with a hissing, humming groove.

Review: Apoca is Lakker's fourth artist album and follows 2016's highly conceptual Struggle & Emerge work. In what marks a change for the duo's approach, it features them singing, with opening track "Shoulder to the Bat" and the droning, stepping "Dropped Shoulders" mixing up evocative human tones with dubbed out techno. On other occasions, like "100 Bar", "A Juggling of Numbers" and "Nest", their love of abstract comes to the fore, with knotted, glitchy rhythms providing the basis for atmospheric textures. The pair also delves deep into experimentation with the neo-classical stylings of "Clavier", while "A Whisper In Your Ear" is an irresistible piece of lumbering, ghostly techno. No matter what direction Lakker turn in, they never fail to impress.

Played by: Juno Recommends Techno, Cristiano Balducci, Resident Advisor, Umek, Complikeyted Disorders, N-TER

Review: To mark the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of his label, James Ruskin has put together this massive compilation. It includes long-term friends and associates of the label - like Oliver Ho, Regis and Luke Slater - as well as newer additions to the roster, including Lakker and Rommek. Apart from uniting artists from different generations, the compilation also showcases the label's various hues; from the broken beats and intricate rhythms of Ruskin and Regis' O/V/R project and the hypnotic soundscapes of Lakker's "Orange" to the trace stabs and 10 tonne kicks of Regis' "Party Spoiler Too" and the chaotic industrial rhythms on Truss' "Wanastow", this compilation offers to newcomers an invaluable introduction to Blueprint, or to long-standing fans an indispensable reminder of why the label is unique.

Played by: Paul Mac, Lifecycle

Review: Love Love has delivered a varied range of music since it emerged on the digital market in 2008 and Lakker maintain the label's bass-leaning output with the Deathmask EP. The sluggish weight heard throughout their earlier material for Blueprint reinforces "LF9", while snares and staccato white noise strafe the track's arrangement, and forlorn sythns and sombre horns add a tonal musicality. The title track sees Lakker draw inspiration from Aphex Twin through the frenetic pattering of static sound, fractured sythns and placid atmospherics. "Preset Numb" sees Lakker deliver some spooky rave music, with a trippy synth line that sounds like a ghoulish version of what Major Lazer might produce, while "Default Numb" sees a kitchen drawer full of percussive elements and bit crushed keys add a childish and playful shake to a track coated in heavy reverb.

Review: Killekill associated imprint Krake have got something pretty special for their debut release - a diverse and fulfilling compilation of some of the most interesting electronic artists of the moment, ranging from techno to IDM and beyond. This is one for you to check out piece by piece but we thought we'd pick out a few tasty ones to get your juices flowing: Pole makes a rare appearance with the beautiful, dubbed-out half-steps of "Wipfel Dub", Cassegrain's "Serpent" is a fast-winding, semi-techno banger complete with one of the nastiest basslines since Surgeon's "Krautrock"; meanwhile Perc comes in with his pulsating techno camaraderie and Lakker's "Darcdub" is just militantly insane. All in all, a fantastic, wide-ranging compilation of new material from some of the darkest minds out there - check the other, lesser known faces too. We're certainly looking forward to the next chapter of Krake...

Played by: S-File, Shadow Dancer, Juno Recommends Electro, Dave Clarke, Systemic, Posthuman, Da GobliNN /Remuted, Heartthrob

Review: In its original form, Killekill was a party that embraced all sorts of electronic music, and the label has opted for the same approach. It doesn't seem to bother Nico who runs Killekill - he previously worked for Shitkatapult - that the imprint's first steps have displayed an almost schizophrenic disregard for the kind of micro-genres that defines electronic music. In fact, like Svreca from Semantica and Micky who runs [Naked Lunch], he seems far more interested in what constitutes a great tune, irrespective if its tempo is 100bpm or 160bpm and regardless of whether it was fashioned in downtown Detroit or a windswept Dublin suburb. Following the wild techno of Alex Cortex's Raw, comes Megahits, a three-installment vinyl release that sums up this approach. It begins almost innocuously, with Bill Youngman's "The 2", a downtempo, jazzy piece that suddenly veers into rude boy half-paced jungle bass. Despite being a Berlin label, UK culture is represented again with the curious blend of ragga vocalsand twitchy acid lines on Affie Yussuf's "Onna Roll", while Radioactive Man serves up his typically party-friendly electro, replete with tonal bass licks on "Addict" and Neil Landstrumm returns to techno territory - albeit a less distorted, noisy one - on the dark, ravey bass of "On The Pussers". There are also nods to contemporary European techno - the most notable being the grainy, dense rhythms and searing acid of Cassegrain and Tin Man'scollaboration - US producers are represented with the murky jack of JTC's "Crush Arbor" and the frightening synths, predatory bass - which has echoes of Suburban Knight - and hyperactive rhythms of DJ Stingray's "Ego Assault". Killekill also proves itself again to be home to the outsider, featuring the punishing beats and menacing synths of Lakker's Autechre-eqsue "Darcdub" and the spectacularly depraved "Furfriend", a stripped back groove powered by a bombastic bassline and featuring a deadpan pervert talking about taking drugs and how he likes to come on people's faces with his "fat cock". Electronic music may have become a smaller place thanks to technology,but as Megahits shows, Killekill's world remains as colourful and occasionally disturbing as an LSD-drenched peek through a kaleidoscope.

Played by: Paul Mac, Lifecycle, Jamie Behan, Systemic, Forest Echo One, GUTTERS

Review: The reason why Dublin-based duo Lakker has attracted a lot of attention is due to the fact that they sound genuinely different. As "Mustard Crying" demonstrates, they are unafraid of dropping a track consisting mainly of beats that sound like someone falling down a flight of stairs and loads of noisy feedback. "Ciar" is only slightly more palatable and revolves around a sludgy bass and walls of screeching noise. But Lakker also have a softer side and even thought they frame it against an itchy, scratchy minimal groove, "Summer Rains" has a fragile beauty to it, its eerie synths feeling like steam rising from the ground after a brief spell of rain on a hot day.

Played by: Paul Mac, Detroit Grand Pubahs, Thatboytim, Juno Recommends Techno, Posthuman, Advanced Human

Review: This release proves again that it's the producers operating at the fringes who often make the most rewarding techno. Lakker are Dublin duo Dara Smith and Ian McDonnell, who for years ploughed a furrow that was inspired by Warp and Rephlex and which resulted in releases that embraced noise, high speed break beats and electronica. So when Lakker decided to focus primarily on techno, they brought with them their previous musical experiences. Unsurprisingly, their debut vinyl for Berlin label Killekill won support from Surgeon and Aphex or that James Ruskin signed their second release to Blueprint. Lakker's past is audible on "Evening Lemon" as detuned, manic piano playing and the sound of kids in a playground bubbles to the surface of a glitchy offbeat backing track - only to give way to a beautiful, dreamy synth. What's more interesting is their application of their left of centre thinking to traditional techno structures. "ED" is powered by crunchy, off beats and shards of glitchy percussion but it's the ghostly, filtered synth that lead it from the outer limits to the realms of the dance floor. Likewise "BKRO" starts with echoing, dubbed out drums and kicks low in the mix, as Lakker let the ghostly textures and melodic undercurrents occupy centre stage. Indeed, if there is a recurrent theme on Arc, it's the use of texture and sound design as a means of seduction and nowhere is the recurrent theme on Arc and nowhere is this more evident than on the title track. There, a dense, lumbering nouveau techno backing provides the backdrop for eerie Aphex-style synths that linger in the background, gradually get closer and then eventually dominate the arrangement as the beats lose their intensity and the electronic melodies prevail, arcing upwards the sublime.