Can a rhythm be discreet and frenzied at the same time? The current state of bass music seems practically engineered to tackle that particular challenge, with some corners of the scene pushing back against superclub maximalism by dicking with the parameters of just what maximalism really is. Lazer Sword, the production pairing of Lando Kal and Low Limit, emerged with a Yay Area take on hip-hop-distilled electro that thoroughly engulfed everything they could wrap their hands around. Their 2010 self-titled debut was a tribute to all things blindingly outsized and glossy in bass music, pastel neon reflected on blinding chrome. And once they got all that out of their system, they decamped for new cities in different continents (Lando to Berlin; Low Limit to L.A.) and started siphoning up a bunch of new styles in the process.
With Memory, their first album on the similarly polyglot-minded Modeselektor's Monkeytown label, they've further developed their tendency to put together one subgenre's tracks by another one's rules. It's apparent they've been picking up all the right influences to streamline their sound, too. There're rhythms that flirt with footwork and Euro-juke. The once-obvious 1980s signifiers have been chronologically muddied with a few nods to subsequent eras in techno, house, and UK funky. And they've swapped out their local-niche-appeal West Coast underground rap collaborations for a wider emphasis on manipulated vocal samples, integrated in ways that recall everything from Todd Edwards' spliced-up house divas to Roger Troutman's talkbox.
Lazer Sword pool those inspirations into tracks that throw double-reverse switches into the relationships between genres, blurring lines between influence and acolyte. The rhythm of "Missed a Spot" seems half a step between tilting one definitive way or another between footwork and the more ambient, Photek-ish end of drum'n'bass, then pulls tension out of the drum track's slow merging with a burbling acid-house riff. "CHSEN", a marquee teamup with Machinedrum, hints at the tarantula-stepping juke/jungle that made Room(s) one of last year's most bracing albums, but the rhythms are simmered down to the point where it sounds more like a companion piece to the refined ghostliness of Kindred-mode Burial. "Sounds Sane" turns vintage techno into an odd recursive conversation with contemporary electro-- or maybe it's the techno element that's contemporary and the electro that's a throwback. Figuring out how they're dealing with the when does seem beside the point when it's more crucial to hear how they're messing with the what.
Most of all, they've developed the approach of making high-energy tracks with subdued and subtle components-- beats that move with grace instead of brute force. Whether the tracks tweak footwork ("Toldyall"), techno ("Point of Return"), or some funk-damaged corruption of microhouse (Jimmy Edgar collaboration "Let's Work"), they roll over rhythms that are intricate, often to the point of frenetic, while still letting plenty of air push through in heavily echoing negative space. Isolating the elements-- dripping percussive bass, brittle snares, tissue-paper synthesizer ambiance-- reveals a force generated more from a nuanced layering of understated elements than any big cranked-to-11 instrumentation. It's a far cry from the place they were at a couple of years ago, but they've found a good balance between headspace and footspace.
