Released in June on Flying Lotus’ label Brainfeeder, Lorn has resurrected my faith in electronica, weaving lush electronic soundscapes around rigid drum sequences.
Nothing Else ebbs and flows with a warmth often associated with artists such as Boards Of Canada, creating a very listenable album from start to finish, full of texture, contrast, and emotion. Whereas the Grief EP went for a DJ tool approach, minimalist bass and beats experiments, Nothing Else tells the whole story of the Lorn sound. Lorn’s strength is in the emotion he can inject into the tracks, while retaining hard bombastic beats with a rigid rhythm, only ever wandering into ‘wonky’ territory for “Tomorrow”, and even this is quite subtle. The first single “Cherry Moon” brings back memories of mid 90’s electro, from labels like DC Recordings, Warp and Clear, toying with the desire to inject soul into music often described as cold, robotic, and without emotion. “Void I” and “Void II” will be remembered from DJ mixes by The Gaslamp Killer, future bass experiments of pounding dubstep beats and sweeping synthesizers. “Army Of Fear” instills a violence, with sharply rhythmic military drums and opposing warm keys and sampled string orchestration.
Lorn is the only artist on the Brainfeeder roster who is not from or living in LA, hailing from Illinois, but has as much intensity as label owner Flying Lotus, and with a similar wildly addictive psychedelic thread that emanates from the lush, dense and often intense soundscapes. Lorn, up there with Flying Lotus, Remdog and Aupheus, is an artist to watch, breathing a breath of fresh air back into a genre of music that has often been criticized for becoming stagnant. An excellent album of future beat science.
Wayne Stronell
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