The Lobster white label series finally gets back into gear with a sublime five-track scorcher from core London member Luke Palmer aka Ozel AB. After firing some deafening shots with last year’s Crimes EP – which burrowed deep into some seriously trippy and journey’d house, techno and acid -Valis sees Palmer develop those evolving arrangement ideas across five very different soundboards that bring his signature brain-fuzzed deepness, rubbery acid and dubbed-out sound design to the fore.
Having broken the barrier for murky skewed house with his 2014 white label ‘A Place Called Ballacid’, Hungarian scene founder S Olbricht returns with a full album on Lobster Theremin that channels his distinct brand of thumping, sludgy techno, weaving through repetitive drone-laden ambient and Hague-esque escape soundtrack house. ‘For Perfect Beings’ is a sound-palette tour de force, picking ‘n’ mixing tempos and tonal balances that shift throughout each track and side of vinyl. Which strangely starts on a 12″ LP slab and ends with a pseudo ‘bonus’ 10″ two track experiment.
Raw M.T. on Lobster Theremin label with three thundering granite slabs of techno and house. The spirit of US house genres raises it’s head once again, fuelled by a raw, scorched-earth production aesthetic coming from the deepest lair of the Italian producer.
Lobster Theremin’s Distant Hawaii offshoot seems to have been designed to offer a colourful, vibrant alternative to its’ parent label’s dystopian techno. Certainly, the bubbly and deliciously positive fare served up here by debutant Tony “DJ Sonikku” Donson perfectly fits the bill. Apparently it was partly created using a Sega Megadrive, and there’s definitely a 16-bit feel to the whistle-happy percussion, drawn-out chords and cheery melodies of “Secret Island”. The other two tracks are equally Balearic in outlook, variously utilizing sampled slap-bass notes, synthesized steel drum melodies, classic New Jersey organs, and eyes-closed solos in a bid to squeeze maximum sun-drenched positivity from each moment.
Black Patterns is a new alias from Lobster Theremin regular Snow Bone, launched to allow him to explore more obviously experimental techno pastures. In truth, Black Patterns Volume 1 is thoroughly in keeping with the fuzzy, distorted and generally bleak material that the hyped label has been putting out of late. Variously creepy, unsettling and freakishly intense, it’s a collection that rarely steps back from the dusty darkness of the crumbling warehouses and basement spaces most readily associated with this style of balls-out techno. As a collection of club tracks, it can’t be faulted. Given that it’s DJs that will be most interested in its’ throbbing charms, it would seem churlish to criticise.
There’s something particularly admirable about Lobster Theremin’s often-stated desire to eschew tried-and-tested producers in favour of newcomers and lesser-known studio buffs. Here, they offer a label debut to William ‘Royer’ Thurman. He escorts us on a trip into the deep depths of his musical imagination, where drifting chords, barely audible vocal samples and dusty melodic motifs rub shoulders with crackling drum machine grooves and blazed, locked-in rhythms. There’s much to enjoy throughout, from the horizontal textures and rolling grooves of “Facts”, to the minor key techno wonkiness of “Collectively”. TRP remixes that track, delivering a heavier, more raw sounding interpretation.
Imre Kiss finally lands back on the Lobster Theremin mothership, this time with a reissue of his seminal tape album Midnight Wave. A seminal, bold and instantly nostalgic LP, Midnight Wave showcases Imre’s immense ability to craft vivid landscapes of ethereal sound, infused with layers and years of emotional content. Culled from live-to-tape synth sessions in his once London abode, these tracks are the result of melancholic and restricted surroundings and trappings. What has emerged is a body of crackling, warm ambient and techno with a vast, cinematic scope. A sonic portrait of an alienated moment in London, told using industrial visceral tools and visualised through the cutting figure of a lonely individual boarding the 5am night bus home.
Dust-soaked and fizzing with effervescent residue, these five tracks swerve and dive between subtle synth texturisations and deep-sleeping sullen house. The boundaries between ambient and house often merging in the depths of the warm, throbbing, analogue fuzz.
Privacy returns to Lobster Theremin with three slabs of slimy, modular, machine-driven electro. Human Resource Exploitation Manual is an aural guide in the optimum exploitation of human substance and material.
Prior to joining up with Lobster Theremin for this volume of their white label series, Qnete’s output had largely consisted of powerful but spacey tracks in an intelligent techno-meets-classic Detroit vibe. While hints of that style are still present on his first Lobster Theremin outing, there’s a much more “classic deep house” feel throughout. Opener “A Luv Jam” comes across as the sort of expansive, star-gazing, Larry Heard inspired jam that moves the head just as much as the feet, while “I Might Be Wrong” doffs a cap in the direction of the Motor City whilst retaining an early ’90s feel. As for flipside “Dresden”, it offers a magical fusion of fizzing, Chicago-inspired drum machine rhythms and spacey, almost endless deep space chords.
Mörk continues a hazy run of releases with a hard-driving, dream-techno 12″ from Romansoff. Known for raw and battered techno excursions and curation through his Raw Tools labels, Romansoff continues his recent stellar run with a more wandering, daylight-dreaming four track EP. The light-splintered techno of ‘Beyond The Self’ melting into the looping shuttered-blind house of ‘Infinite Dreams’. While the flip explores a visceral washed-out 5am sound palette, with ‘Seven Sins’s drowning modems and the incessant clattering rhythms of ‘She Forgives’.
Super not-secret summer business from the Lobster family. Four luscious, beach-coasting, jet-skiing tracks inspired by the soul of Detroit via Manchester producer Hidden Spheres. Vocal tracks that undulate with ‘mmm’s and ‘uuuh’s for the real deal summer feel. Sweeping Rhode lines, organic percussion to make the thumbs raw and those deep, woofing basses that just keep on giving. Hidden Spheres going for the jugular.
Warm, washy chords collide with bubbling, subterranean acid and crunchy drum work on this subtly epic debut from Swiss newcomer, Tissu, with his trippy delay-drenched synths giving everything an astral-aquatic quality.
The second Mork release finally gets out of the blocks, helmed by Italian analogue explorer Raw M.T. With some seriously heavy cuts under his belt, we coaxed him out of hiding for a varied 12” of low-slung house, dreamy beachside dreams and hammering arpeggiated techno, cut deep and heavy over two sides of wax.
Route 8 returns to Lobster Theremin with a very special four-track white label of emotive dreamscape house and heady techno. Expanding on the ideas and themes he explored on last years’ Dry Thoughts EP, Route 8 slides fresh out of his New Age synth shell for 2015, adding crystalline electro and tool-room clattering house to his emotionally charged sound palette.
The first Lobster Theremin EP of 2015 comes from London-based newcomer and hazologist, Ozel AB. Striking a distinct tone with his lucid day-dreamer pads, blown-out MPC drums and Werkdiscs-inspired weirdness.
Imbued with elements of the North’s industrious past, but flecked with hints of Birmingham and Detroit techno, Reflec manages to squeeze every ounce of life out of his machinic workings, presenting them in a progressive and extended form that couples as a club journey in the truest sense.
Lobster Theremin launch their first sublabel proper, heralding a darker, murkier and deeper sound on their newly minted Mork imprint. Retaining it’s mother label’s passion for championing newcomers, Mork launches with a debut release from young Netherlandic producer nthng. Cultivating a sound that sits somewhere between Prince of Denmark and early Claro Intelecto with splashes of Clone influence, nthng’s stripped-back techno walks fuzzy, shrouded paths through nolstagic moments in time.
The Lobster Theremin label is finally ready to make the move to the full-length format. Interestingly, this first LP – a double album, no less – comes from a largely unheralded source, former Vancouver resident Chicago Jim (AKA Space Jim). Chicago Jim replicates the contents of his self-released 2012 cassette of the same name, bringing his blend of Larry Heard-inspired analogue deep house and stargazing ambience to vinyl for the first time. With nods to Heard’s recently reissued Alien LP, early Transmat and Virgo Four style acid house, it’s an analogue-only set – recorded mostly using vintage kit – that ebbs and flows with great emotional intent.
The Hipodrome Of Music 