LACK Vinilo y CD

Review: Cong Burn made a mighty splash with its first release, clearly flaunting the kind of wares you'd expect to hear from Livity Sound alumni or other such esteemed techno renegades. The second installment is no slouch either, featuring a new cast of crooked creators offering up their wares for the modern mutant dancefloor. BFTT has a weighty low end thrum powering "Public/Private", while Lack takes things in a scuffed and nimble direction. Chekov pushes out into more experimental pastures with the broken beats and displaced sound design of "Celeste" and Howes creates a wonderful strain of mystical deep house for darkened souls. Each one of these tracks is loaded with flair and personality, yards ahead of your average generic knock offs and presenting something with real merit to the convoluted world of dance music.

Review: REPRESS ALERT: The quality of the Cong Burn releases shows no signs of slowing as they reach their fourth volume, rounding off a sterling year for the label. Russian producer Flaty makes an appearance here with the metallic, motorik electro of "Clearences" before Lack slows things down with the clanky funk of "Multiplier". Chekov has a more full bodied techno sound to impart, using spacious sound design to create a rich and immersive modernist jam, while Martinou completes the set with a subtle, shuddering and shimmering effort that dips below the radar of dancefloor convention to achieve a more subliminal effect.

Review: The Morphine label has developed something of a reputation for picking out intriguing talents from the USA's experimental underground, be it old hands such as Charles Cohen or newer names such as Metasplice and Madteo. The latest release from Morphine draws from this latter pool with Expect Night Work from North Carolina-based Lack. This four track 12" is Lack's first vinyl release, having so far released a CDr and two cassettes for his own Lmgrovllum label as well as Faux-Pas. His style fits neatly into the grainy, monochromatic aesthetic Morphine has been cultivating visually and sonically, exploring a similar intersection between noise and techno as fellow Morphine artist Container, with the four bare bones tracks the kind of music you'd hear in a Powell DJ set.

Review: The Cong Burn crew are back with another of those buy-on-sight split 12"s. Once again they're focused on building up the community of artists orbiting the label, so it's great to see stellar returns from many of the names on here. Lack has a compelling take on broken beat techno to impart, all smudged out dubby atmospheres and off-centre beats. Tonto makes their debut appearance here with the stripped back echo chamber dread of "Rust", and Chekov twists things up with the angular bleeps and jagged time signature of "Fold". Perfume Advert seal the deal with "Mad Downer", an elegant shaker that juggles nagging sound design with mellow mood setters.