EP, released as clang043

Lars Graugaard, computer

Composed, performed, mixed, edited and mastered by Lars Graugaard January 2015 and February-March 2016 in Santiago, Chile

Instrumentation is a laptop running Max

Track list
1. Felipe – dur. 7:27
2. Conflated – dur. 6:58
3. Next Junction – dur. 8:52
4. Quick Turn – dur. 9:59
Total: 33:16

FAZEMAG
At first I was rather averse to the sports-car noises because I expected it to reveal a ghastly 90s type techno-rave rubbish. But lo and behold: Lars Graugaard has programmed some playful Groove-Tech patterns (if such a sub genre indeed exists) and proceeds to tease out some very raw, edgy beats that at times are reminiscent of Actress. Persect will not meet everyone’s taste and it will not become consensus material on the techno floors. But that does not appear to be what Graugaard wants anyway. Very experimental, very entertaining.

BLOW UP
The Danish Martian Lars Graugaard uses the laptop exclusively for his music and, contrary to what you might imagine upon hearing it, he is not exactly a rookie: approaching his seventies he comes out of academic circles and embodies the experience of dozens of ‘learned’ compositions that range from classical score-writing to contemporary improvisation. With “Persect” he operates within techno but do not take this digital download for an occasional diversion. On the contrary, as the musician applies the same concept of sound bodies that he uses elsewhere (see the section altrusuoni in this issue), the only difference being the constancy of the techno rhythms that underlie them: amusing and intense (Felipe), obsessively repeating (Conflated), pierced by jazzy neon lights (Next Junction), lush afro (Quick Turn). The rich and highly detailed music that Graugaard sets on top of his bass lines are computer processes that sound and behave as traditional instruments while having fresh, electronic timbres: improvisations, solos, rebounds, bridges, mirror games, evaginations. The result is a kind of techno-mutant improvisation that is fun and fanciful, constantly changing and surprisingly psychedelic, danceable and humorous.

NITESTYLEZ
Scheduled for release via Clang as the label’s cat.no. 043 on June 17th, 2k16 is “Persect”, the latest four track EP outing created by Lars Graugaard under his casual production alias Lars From Mars, aiming to fuse Minimal Techno and mathematical functions – sic! – over the course of 33 minutes playing time. And although this combination of numbers science and dancefloor functional structures might sound a little odd at first things seem to be falling in place for some reason, even though tracks like the opening tune Felipe are constantly shifting and changing from bar to bar, proving that constant repetition and slow variation is not a necessity for club functional music – at least not when we’re talking hyped late night crowds and an implied supply of special k.

Interestingly, the opener also caused a weird feeling of motion sickness and light nausea when consumed on headphones, similar to some specific LFO filters. With Conflated we’re getting closer to a straight Minimal Techno feel which, due to its level of abstraction and constant mutation, could also be pigeonholed as TechnoJazz and will surely be well appreciated by fans and followers of producers like Matthew Herbert as well. Next Junction focuses on ever shifting low frequencies and a seemingly improvised synth melody jam accompanied by chirping, high frequency laser beams and the final cut Quick Turn comes across as a lovely and masterly crafted mutation of a dry’n’raw Minimal Techno vs. piano jam that’s also well-relatable to lovers of deep and pumping House music. Techno-not-Techno; much?

Persect

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