- Berlin-based producer Nick Lapien has several aliases, but they're tied together by a singular mood. As half of Artefakt, Lapien makes noirish, longform techno that's frosty to the touch. There's a chilliness to Metropolis, too, whose Angstpolitiek EP was a recent example of Lapien's fluency with EBM hybrids and post-punk. But the coldness that works for Artefakt and Metropolis doesn't click on Something To Tell You, an EP whose emotional detachment is too clumsy to register as mysterious. The cigarette-stained vocals on "Something To Tell You" and "In The Dark" are appealing, but the surrounding music is either too flat or too stodgy to tease out the emotions between the lines.
A six-track EP assembled from a recent live show, Something To Show You is a partner piece that more clearly demonstrates Lapien's strengths. The spontaneity frees his music of Something To Tell You's complications—the sticky, polyrhythmic hand drums of "Searching" are given space to sway, whereas the same percussion on "Something To Tell You" feels hemmed in by competing layers. There's more tonal variety to Something To Show You, too, illustrated by the presence of snapping chords on "Wild For The Night" and curling pianos on "It Ain't The Same." Some of these songs are undoubtedly rough around the edges—the loop on "It Ain't The Same," for instance, gets monotonous—but the EP's quirks, born from a more immediate impetus to entertain, are easier to forgive than Something To Tell You's consistent dourness. One of Something To Show You's best tracks, "Need Nobody," puts a house vocal beneath the sort of hypnotic slosh you'd find on an Artefakt 12-inch. It's a rare occasion on these records when Lapien sounds like the best version of himself.
TracklistSomething To Tell You:
A1 Something To Tell You
A2 Loved Him So
B1 No Good
B2 In The Dark
Something To Show You:
A1 Searching
A2 Moon
A3 Wild For The Night
B1 Love Ya
B2 Need Nobody
B3 It Ain't The Same