Ok so, this latest album from Lump200, what can we expect? Something outlandish? Experimental? challenging? Maybe all of those. A daunting listen to that gives up more and more layers the more you open up to it and decide to revel in its weirdness.
Berlin-based Lump200 is a producer of experimental electronica that eagerly defy common, set conventions. Utilizing unorthodox synth pads, ripping leads, bustling percussions, and experimental compositions, Lump200 seems to approach music-making as a challenge to reach the most polarizing textures and rhythmic constructs.
There is a lot of fun content in ‘Isles Of You’. Mature and unabashedly left field as it is, the lengthy album is still loaded with interesting soundscapes and musical ideas that got my ears perking, listening intently for more. Jumping between the terrific ‘Cex’, which we covered a couple of weeks earlier in a shatteringly positive review, and the demanding and unendingly wonky ‘Skox’, Lump200 clearly knows how to make sounds that would be compelling to us mere earthlings, but deliberately chooses nerve-wracking textures and alienating soundscapes as an artistic stance that he takes with pride.
The snarky beats of the starting cut ‘I Am The Elephant In The Room’ were a standout moment. Fused with sleazy horn riffs and impressionistic voices, it is a sublime piece of funk jazz with delicious, fragmented beats that reminded me of some of Michael Jackson’s more experimental cuts. ‘Dr.Schwann’ is another standout piece. With rippling synths, evil chords, and broken glass, it is one of the album’s most accessible pieces, with its minimalist sound, yet one of its most eerie.
The album’s striking colors and textures continue on cuts like ‘Nilien’, which utilizes a huge synth lead to rip through the busy mix with one of the record’s most bizarre riffs. Or ‘Splix’ with its sensational tenor sax playing that’s both warm and horrifying. Or ‘Master Realist’ and its haunting, chopped-up sampled vocals, resulting in one of the album’s most intimidating atmospheres. It is clear now that the album boasts of a wealth of ideas that can trace roots back to jazz and funk, but with their feet standing firmly within the realms of experimental electronic music.
Lump200 is bold and musical, and so is his latest album ‘Isles Of You’. Taking pleasure in creating atmospheres and soundscapes that are unlike anything pop or usual, his music comes across as strange and otherworldly, and while some cuts don’t really work, the ones that do, are entirely captivating. ‘Isles Of You’ is a brave and demanding musical output from an extremely creative individual that’s just asking for a chance to be openly explored, for it to open up and show its true depth, character, and color.