- House and techno from a master of subtlety.
- Lerosa has perfected the art of understated electronic music. Rather than pursuing flashy arrangements or mind-twisting sound design, the Dublin-based Italian has employed classic tools to craft elegant house, techno and electro with beautiful simplicity. It's the kind of approach that, in the wrong hands, is often dull or forgettable. But it has always yielded compelling results from this often overlooked artist.
Lerosa emerged after the height of mid-'00s minimal in a curious pocket of house, where stripped-down aesthetics and a subtly inventive weirdness met warm sound palettes and old-school production. (It's the same groove artists like Move D, Juju & Jordash and Anton Zap found a foothold in.) Though Lerosa's last album, 2011's Amanatto, drew from Larry Heard and the Chicago forefathers, his nomadic catalogue has since ranged from Italo-tinted party tracks to basement-ready acid.
On Lerosa's latest album, for Los Angeles' Acid Test, the atmosphere is mostly one of stately hypnosis—the kind of regal, dubbed-out textures and subliminal rhythms found in the music of Donato Dozzy, a past collaborator. Bucket Of Eggs' opening track features metallic slithers of pads, chords and effects darting like sprites around an off-centre acid throb and submerged beat. It's instantly engaging, artfully sculpted and, true to Lerosa's style, tastefully low key.
There's been a particular strain of dubby approaches in techno recently, from Anthony Naples' Fog FM LP to HVL's Ostati. Lerosa's LP also fits this trend, especially on "Deadline." The space in the mix is as important as the effects, but it's worth latching onto the current of acid bass underneath the scattered ripples, decays and weightless synth drops.
One track on Bucket Of Eggs is called "Sheffield," presumably a callback to the bleep techno forged there in the late '80s. While there's a liberally applied bassline, the occasional bleepy riff and swooning pads, it doesn't feel like an attempt to specifically ape the early Warp Records sound. Rather, Lerosa's taken a few cues and pressed on with his own ideas, which is quite emblematic of his career overall.
There's a fine line between taking influence and making pure throwback music. Lerosa is comfortably in the former camp. An album as subtle as this could easily pass many people by (as may have happened with Lerosa's past work). But for listeners attuned to more understated strains of house and techno, Bucket Of Eggs is another masterful excursion from a producer exploring his sound with minimum fuss.
Tracklist01. Bucket Of Eggs
02. Cluster
03. Conjurors
04. Deadline
05. One Is Too Short
06. Damocles
07. Sheffield
08. Subterfuge
09. Self Inflicted
10. Don't Worry