Thomas Fehlmann - Los Lagos
Pickup available at Holdrons Arcade
Usually ready in 24 hours
Thomas Fehlmann - Los Lagos
Holdrons Arcade
135A Rye Lane
Unit 11 Holdrons Arcade
London SE15 4ST
United Kingdom
Label: Kompakt – KOMPAKT 388
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Germany
Released: Sep 7, 2018
Genre: Electronic
Style: Downtempo, Dub Techno, Ambient
Thomas Fehlmann has been underrated as a solo artist for far too long. Gute Luft in 2010 was a breezy, gorgeous dub techno portrait of Berlin city life, written as the soundtrack to the documentary 24h Berlin. Honigpumpe, three years earlier, brought a rubbery funk to his sound. Los Lagos confirms that he is still the master of the low-key masterpiece. Loewenzahnzimmer opens by lowering us into a nocturnal pit, looking out over a distant city skyline, like a negative image of Fuewa’s Birth Palace. The percussion grows into a proper groove by the end. Window is proper dub techno, a gorgeous pad sitting just beneath the action as it floats for almost nine minutes.
Almost every track runs past seven minutes, and not a second is spent on dull experimentation. Morrislouis has a tech-tinged, reggae-leaning Fehlmann, while Triggerism brings the first true snare on the record. Freiluft imagines an Ashra-style kraut groove reinterpreted by Moritz von Oswald, and Neverevernever sounds like an alien dub rock band playing piano-led blues rock in the emptiness of space. Geworden closes on a minimal, effervescent high, with a notable sample of Huerco S.’s A Sea of Love. Fehlmann lets a drone cycle and adds arpeggiated synth, synthetic glass taps and chime rings, lighting the sample up from a fresh compositional angle rather than simply playing over it. It has been a while since a solo record from him, and the wait was worth it.
Thomas Fehlmann - Los Lagos
