- Two heroes of the Oakland underground end the year with audacious but tender breakbeats.
- When Daria Lourd, AKA Bored Lord, first started making music as part of the Rrare Nnudes collective in the early 2010s, her music was raw and visceral, but also a bit cheeky. Across staticky melodies and stuttering rhythms, she cultivated a style that Bandcamp Daily dubbed "emo electronica." She's taken a similar approach as she's pivoted to the dance floor. There are plenty of feels in her rapidly growing back catalog of homages to the golden era of UK rave, but she also turns out everything from KoЯn to Mariah Carey edits. Working with long-time collaborator and friend bastiengoat, Lourd's latest EP Les Deux keeps up this balancing act between emotion and irreverence.
This yin-and-yang is perfected on "Be My" and "Let Me Down." On the former, the duo take a simple refrain and wring every last ounce of feeling from it with some stargazing chords. But they also keep it moving, thanks to the steely drum programming and occasional sub pulses. "Let Me Down" likewise takes a coy lovestruck sample and reimagines it as a UK hardcore-meets-footwork hybrid, a bit like Darren Styles and RP Boo DJing a wedding together. Even without vocals, the effect is the same. "Thallium" is like reaching into a bag with a blindfold and assembling a track from stems of a '90s rave and second wave Detroit—pure adrenaline meets robot melancholy.
The past two years have seen Bored Lord move from underground American hero to a fixture on the international circuit, playing everywhere from Panorama Bar to Unsound. It's fitting that she's chosen to close the year with a figure much closer to home—the two are products of the Bay Area's vibrant experimental club scene that continues to withstand gentrification, a constant brain drain and the loss of scene leaders like Club Chai. Both bastiengoat and Bored Lord are a testament to the Bay's omnivorous approach to dance music, jumping between styles and sounds with a contagious glee.
Tracklist01. Thallium
02. Be My
03. Let Me Down
04. Silence