Lotic – Power

One of the most important electronic albums of the year...

Lotic’s debut album ‘Power’ was recorded after a period of homelessness in Berlin, meaning the album could only be worked on every few months, other a two-year period. The resulting eleven tracks challenge what power is, how it is used, and its effects.

Opening track ‘Love and Light’ lives up to its name, with delightfully bright chimes and airy glittering, ethereal and euphoric synths. This should be how every Pride around the world starts. ‘Hunted’ is next up and acts like the Yin to ‘Love and Lights’ Yang. It's dark, broody, and claustrophobic. Lotic’s vocals are sensuous and whispery, giving off a confessional, or confidential, vibe. Musically it’s a brutal, glitchy banger, full of swagger and catwalk posturing.

‘Resilience’ reimagines the high school marching band, but from a disjointed and abrasive perspective. There is a regimented nature to its glitching, but the eerie synths create an otherworldly sensation. Stand-out track ‘Solace’ closes the album with shards of a David Arnold James Bond theme to it, with soaring vocals and delicate melodies.

‘Power’ is one of the most important electronic albums of the year, and luckily, it’s one of the best. Lotic moves away from the wonky, dance-oriented music of previous releases ‘Heterocetera’ and ‘Agitations’ for an album infused with catchy melodies, industrial motifs, abstract noise and skittery beats. There are elements of these releases, but Lotic has pushed the envelope sonically, and compositionally, to create a brave and breathtaking view of gender in 2018 and, ultimately, what it means to be alive.

8/10

Words: Nick Roseblade

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