Lorn
(Brainfeeder)
Packaged in a minimal black slipcase, Nothing Else's noirish instrumentals are sonically just as zipped-up as the jacket suggests. Illinois-based producer Marcos "Lorn" Ortega closes off his paranoid beats before anything runs too long, and the slim set here is as rich with spooky string sections as it is with rumbling synth bass. Hovering around the 2:30 or three-minute mark, each track is short and sweet, eventually touching on both Breakupdown-era Ghislain Poirier's work as well as the fruits of the now-hyperactive West Coast beat music scene, where Flying Lotus combs demos to pluck a worthy entry for his Brainfeeder label.
Prophecies about turbulent economies and unlawful wars from an underground MC aren't needed on Nothing Else; Lorn's harsh, clapping drums and 8-bit patterns sometimes offer as dismal a portrait as you can get on their own. When it isn't as dark as midnight, though, Lorn's album is glitzy, stewing in dense instrumentation.
Violin-driven melancholia curls over frazzled breakbeats for "Cherry Moon," while "Bretagne" plays out as its stomping counterpart on Nothing Else, with UK grime-like synth stabs and an emphasis on deep bass. Lingering in the low end is a regular theme on the LP, and Lorn's affinity for bass-and-bleeps and horror-flick organs mirrors that of Gaslamp Killer, with whom he partnered for a recent Low End Theory podcast.
Lorn's early 2010 remix of producer Deru's "Peanut Butter & Patience" added spastic sci-fi blurts and guttural bass lines. He avoided sacrificing the well-oiled split of techy experimentalism and hip hop sensibility at its base, and Nothing Else's "Greatest Silence" evolves almost in the same fashion. In the track's mash of analog and digital tones, you get the best of what's happening in 2010's circle of forward-looking beatmakers. Buzzsaw grooves, markedly warmer keys, and clubby prodding culminate in a tease that could prattle on for hours. But Lorn, in line with his frequent displays of keen editorial discernment, clips it at just the right juncture.
Standout Tracks: "Cherry Moon," "Greatest Silence" DOMINIC UMILE
