Lord For £39

We Say...

Review by Philip Sherburne

Scotland's Neil Landstrumm has long been a member of techno's avant-garde; like Cristian Vogel, a collaborator and labelmate on imprints like Sativae, Mosquito and Tresor, Landstrumm approaches techno less as a fixed style than as a field for open-ended investigations into rhythm and sound design. That doesn't mean he's stubbornly resistant to genre: Restaurant of Assassins was a collage of classic styles that invoked the early, hyper-fertile years of British dance music. Lord for £39, likewise, loosely bases itself in dubstep's signature tropes — nausea-inducing bass, machine-shop percussion, staggering rhythms led by ducking, feinting kick drums. There's even what sounds like an open homage to another dubstep producer, Rustie; "Little Help from Rustie" features the same warbly bleeps and swings with the same derangement as the fellow Scot's bizarre, 8-bit funk.

But unlike many dubsteppers who seem content to reach for the same presets, Landstrumm never sounds like he's fitting pieces into a predetermined template. Lord for £39 revels in its sound design: every bass sound warps and frizzles, but each in a different way. From the impish to the garish, every high-end melody keeps in character, rounding out a cast filled with drunks, nags and outright loonies. As hyperkinetic and as maximal as Landstrumm's music can be, he knows the importance of space and proportion. On "Easter Krunk Power," bass and drums clear a wide path to allow dubby little critters to come wobbling to a crawl; on "Witches Butter," every sound holds its own, from metallic pings to the gurgling sub-bass below. What saves the punishing "£20 To Get Home" from being hackneyed is how utterly seductive it sounds, as though banging your head against the back of the taxi driver's seat were the most appealing sensation in the world. The album's best track is also its least typical: "The King of Malta," which wraps brisk electro patterns in the strange tones and lush melodies of early '90s electronic — a teasing suggestion of what Landstrumm might dream up if he turned his attention towards rave's long-neglected chillout rooms.