Axis

Description

Londoner Luke Younger, known for his experimental industrial music, characterizes the creation of his latest collection, Axis, as a liberating return to his roots. Begun before the pandemic as the soundtrack to a dance performance, the initial idea was for something visceral, evoking physical movement. When the project was indefinitely paused, he re-envisioned the content in the context of an album, while retaining its sense of dynamic physicality. The result is sinister and striking, pulses that stir and lift the heart in a low-ceilinged space, peppered with fractured metallic sounds, hissing steam, and screeching spirals of granular mist. Noise in its highest, most fascinating form, emanating from and destined for the body as much as the mind. The album's unique immediacy reactivates raw methods with new energy. He began working with noise techniques again: more primitive equipment, cheap effects, contact mics, noise boxes. Contributions from Lucy Railton (cello), Mark Morgan of Sightings (guitar), Alex Tucker (vocals), and the late, legendary John Hannon (violin) further enrich the palette of this record. While half of the tracks were started before the epidemic in John's studio in Essex, the rest were completed in Luke's kitchen and living room during lockdown. The final tracks were then handed to veteran mixing specialist Randall Dunn, who refined the content, adding a vivid spatial quality. From the hellish metronome of "Moskito" to the insectoid pulse of "Repellent" and the bubbling orchestral undertow of "Axis," this is music of menacing gravity and worlds in peril. Luke Younger describes the final track, Tower, as one of the most dramatic pieces of music he has ever made. A dark, soaring descent is invoked with the help of keyboards, guitars, and wah-wah, then the melody simmers and swells until it suddenly explodes into distorted rhythmic chaos. From their ashes, the three-note riff slowly re-emerges, like an astral synth exorcism, rising in a burning arc towards a frenetic immolation before fading into white fire and whispers from the beyond.