There isn’ a lot to be found about La Lakers online, other than that they appear to be from New Zealand and this is their second release (following on from some collaborative pieces) on the Dungeon Taxis label out of Christchurch.
The twelve short pieces are loosely structured around central drones and decaying washes of static and tone. The highlight is track ’04’ (no titles are listed on the CD-R), which is gentler than many of the other pieces. It takes some gorgeous notes and stretches them until they dissolve into vapor trails. Many of the tracks sound like they incorporate field recordings and manipulated turntable crackles but ’04’ is very much in the vein of laptop constructed sounds of Fennesz and fellow New Zealander Rosy Parlane. There is a warm, yearning and nostalgic smear that makes the piece glow and pulse brilliantly.
Unfortunately the rest of the pieces don’ have the same impact. ’05’ is a thinly sliced glitch fest, stuttering and twitching, while ’07’ stirs together those aforementioned field recordings of what sounds like water and kids playing. Elsewhere, ’09’ is their most accessible moment of ambient shoegaze.
’10’ and ’11’ approach Part Timer territory with digitally manipulated guitar and some slight Fourtet-isms that betray some of La Lakers’ influences. Combined, the half hour CD-R makes for a nice listen and shows that NZ continues to have a healthy experimental underground with new names coming through, especially in the experimental electronica realm.
Chris Familton
