Tundra is Lakker’s long awaited sophomore album, in which the Irish duo composed of Dara Smith and Ian McDonnell confidently depart from the restricting confines of the extended player to present a 10-track album composed of over fifty minutes of IDM induced dystopian electronica harnessing an outstanding result.
Lakker’s sound design is just as beautiful as it is mathematical, each track is carefully conceptualised, yet more lifelike than their previous collections. Human presence is one of the best new additions on Tundra. The choir in Three Songs and the folk singing in Milch blend well into the environment of the machine imitated drums and marching beats. There’s a robust melancholy in Halite and Pylon; the former’s contemplative melody and the latter’s enormous bells amalgamated with distortion is one of the highlights of the album.
Tundra may not as beat-driven as the duo’s previous 12″s on Blueprint, nor as inhuman as their releases on Stroboscopic Artefacts, but the sound of Lakker remains readily identifiable. Their experiments mostly never happen outside of their comfort zone, but somehow they are capable of giving new meaning to IDM, and the jet propelled ambience in Mountain Divide or the slo-mo, laboratory footwork in Oktavist show the duo’s open-mindedness and constant progression in their ideas.
Tundra is out now on R&S Records, order a vinyl copy from their web-store.
TRACKLIST
1. Echtrae
2. Milch
3. Mountain Divide
4. Three Songs
5. Ton’Neru
6. Halite
7. Tundra
8. Pylon
9. Oktavist
10. Herald
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