- Longstanding lo-fi house producer Florian Kupfer returns with an album of eerie electro and off-kilter techno.
- Florian Kupfer's 2013 debut single Lifetrax introduced a lo-fi house producer who had a knack for two things in particular: rugged percussion (see "Feelin") and a patient approach (see "Lifetrax"). It's this patient approach that he builds on most successfully here for Lifetrax II, an album that, on the surface, seems like it'll be a sequel to his debut. But really, it's more of a hard reset.
For one thing, Lifetrax II isn't lo-fi house at all. It's an electro record with hints of minimal techno and dark ambient. Secondly, unlike Lifetrax, it's an album and not a single, giving room for Kupfer to bury his music in the eerie soundscapes that were prominent on his more recent ambient releases from 2018 through 2021.
The deep plodding hand drums add a bleak tinge to "Nabemba," bringing to mind a Muslimgauze record. "Oxytocin"'s far-off shimmering synths are holier, with a celestial feel more in line with Joey Anderon's classic LP After Forever. These otherworldly tropes seep into the dance tracks, too, lending a cinematic grandeur while highlighting the lighter sounds around them. Save for "Black Cat," nimble hi-hats and tight snares replace the heady kick drums that were the main event of Kupfer's earlier work. On the electro cuts "Valiant" and "CS II," the drums are quick and skittish, while on the Drexciya-influenced "Disintegration," the synths bubble up until they're squeaky clean.
As well as shifting the focus towards more delicate sounds, these tracks are built loose and unpredictable. The chord stabs that come in at the end of "CS II" are jerky—almost random—with just a hint of structure in there to hold them down. "Disintegration"'s kick drums are unruly. One moment they're scaling up and down freely, the next they're stomping forward.
Kupfer is clearly enjoying himself here. He seems to have found the same nascent freedom and space that made his debut so strong, and repurposed it with what he learned from his time exploring more ambient music. In this sense, Lifetrax II isn't just a return to form, it's a creative rebirth.
Tracklist01. Postsynaptic
02. Valiant
03. CS II
04. Proxima
05. Disintegration
06. Black Cat
07. CRS
08. Dereliction
09. Nabemba
10. Stress Test
11. Raphe Nuclei
12. Oxytocin