Electronic Sound July 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 27

singers and, on ‘Three Songs’, female
choral voices from Dublin, beautifully set
against hard metallic beats that could
be straight out of a 3am Berlin techno
bunker.

LAKKER
Tundra
R&S

Berlin-based dark-ambient
techno duo filter raw nature through
sculpted digital soundscapes
As Jean-Paul Belmondo’s character
Michel Poiccard says in the French new
wave classic ‘À Bout De Souffle’, “If you
don’t like the sea… and you don’t care
for the mountains… and don’t like the big
city either… go fuck yourself!”.

Elsewhere, ‘Herald’ crackles and
fizzes like a metronomic firework,
before unexpectedly giving way to
introspective piano keys in a moment
that encapsulates the piece’s best
sequences, where natural organic warmth
is juxtaposed with quite the opposite.
Tracks like this have an assuredness
that must also owe some debt to the
production of Sonic Boom. Classily
mastered at his fabled New Atlantis
Studios, there’s an astonishing amount
of bottom-end gravitas on show here.
And at the top-end too, there’s an icy,
crystalline clarity and plenty of room for
everything in between; from the synth
drone to the combative machine-drum
beats, which come on with a powerful
– and perhaps at times unnecessary –
relentlessness.
Lakker themselves namecheck reference
points that include the choral minimalism

of avant-garde composer Arvo Part and
Japanese noise merchant Merzbow. But
by bringing giants such as these to mind,
expectations are bound to be set high,
particularly for those who are turned on
by experimental risk. In truth, ‘Tundra’
isn’t wholly satisfying, as a little more
balance, space and off-piste freedom
wouldn’t go amiss at times, especially
during the first half of the album.
Thankfully, the considered restraint
of ‘Halite’ brings welcome relief from
some of the perhaps slightly over-egged
percussive harshness, in the form of
celestial light and ocean-fresh air.
But that uneasy mix of industrial
darkness and natural, unfiltered warmth
does seem to be essentially what
‘Tundra’ is about. Combining chaotic,
destructive forces within compositions
that also contain programmed
mathematical predictability, Smith and
McDonnell ask us to reflect on parallels
that increasingly surround us, but which
are seldom considered together.
CARL GRIFFIN

It seems that similar sentiments are at
the core of this instrumental debut album
from Berlin-based Dubliners Dara Smith
and Ian McDonnell, aka Lakker, in the
manner in which they aim to pair the
essence of the chaotic digital heart of the
techno-metropolis with the raw power of
the elements. The result is an ambitious
and sometimes demanding work that
requires your unwavering attention. It
may also sometimes test your mettle.
But for that, there’s ample reward.
The choice of samples on ‘Tundra’
deserves special mention. Carefully
picked and cleverly placed, these
snippets add weight and texture at points
where derivation could begin to creep in.
There are church bells from Schöneberg
and field recordings from Japanese
motorway tunnels. There are Inuit throat

Pic: Eileen Carpio