Label
SomethingVinylSeries 31
- Wonky house and beatdown loop wizardry from one of the all-time masters.
- Navigating the STL back catalog is intimidating. Over the past two decades, Stephen Laubner has donned his STL moniker to put out over 15 LPs and dozens of 12-inches (not to mention 20 albums as Lunatik Sound System). Picking up a record at random is like joining a group of friends mid-conversation where you aren't totally sure what everyone was talking about before you entered the room. But for anyone keeping score, Laubner has been feeling funky over the past few years. His last LP, Nautic Nebulous, blended minimal house and Detroit beatdown. His most recent 12-inches have been equally fun (check out this chirpy IDM-ish number, for example). Although Laubner made his name with elegant, often murky dub techno tracks, Lost In Muzik is a reminder that he can also turn out the dance floor with loopy, mind-bending house and techno.
Covid-19 didn't change much for Laubner (as he told XLR8R recently, "I live in a sleepy town and the good clubs are far away. So it didn’t feel like a complete shutdown for me"), and his relationship with the dance floor is still both elusive and on-point. He popped out two impressive, club-forward mixes in the past two months and the majority of Lost In Muzik is made to make you wiggle. Case in point: "Hug'' is one of his biggest tracks ever. Laubner starts in typically grainy and impressionistic form, but as the lopsided melody expands over its 14-minute runtime, a 303 and some unhinged sound effects explode into the track like bad trip flashbacks.
Lost In Muzik reaches similar heights elsewhere. On "Deep Cheese," for example, he swings the drums under a disco bassline and an organ melody piped in from an Indiana Jones soundtrack. And while not exactly DJ-friendly, "Beat-O-Cosm'' is just as playful with its punch-drunk lurch. We start with a stuttering pause between the drums, but towards the end of the song he layers drums so densely it feels like he might short-circuit his machine at any moment. If you're seeking out "Silent State" vibes, Lost In Muzik also has you covered. Both "Peace Out" and "Why Because'' take the emotional depth of Laubner's dub techno and fuse them with beatdown, as stargazing chords duet with boom-bamp drumming.
Those tracks are long and winding, with Laubner slowly adding new layers into his loops. But with his typical and idiosyncratic locked grooves, he also understands the importance of a few quick fixes of funk. Speaking to Resident Advisor in 2014, Laubner explained why he always fills his records with locked grooves and other snippets: "[Loops] are simply capturings and snapshots of different studio situations and harmonious moments." Lost In Muzik is packed with this serendipitous harmony. Of these rough cut diamonds, the best are "Up" and "Witchflight." "Up" is a disco house groove that sounds like Soundstream and DJ Sotofett jamming and the percussion in "Witchflight" reminded me of a door spring and a BDSM whip hashing it out.
These rough-and-ready locked grooves underline Laubner's heroic commitment to DIY dance music. Lost In Muzik, like the majority of his output from the past two decades, lands on his own Something label, operated from his homebase in Harz. Although he does partner on distribution, you can still visit his website to purchase vinyl directly from him on his very Web 1.0 website (which features the most endearing FAQs I've ever read. Question: "Is something-records.com an unsafe website / why does your domain doesn't include a http-s?" Answer: "My website is coming from a time before https and without other newer bad features like tracking-cookies etc."). This is another outstanding record built from the humblest of analog loops from the humblest of artists.
TracklistA1 Deep Cheese
A2 Hug
A3 Loop1
A4 Loop2
A5 Loop3
A6 Loop4
A7 Loop5
B1 Beat-O-Cosm
B2 Why Because
C1 Peace Out
C2 Witchfight
C3 Up
C4 Crank
C5 Loop6
D1 Damn Sniffers
D2 Reality Is All They Know
D3 Loop7