In the context of the emergent “deconstructed club” flavour-of-the-week hype, it’s become increasingly frivolous, in poor taste, and disconcerting to even cursorily participate in a scene that’s become more concerned with gender politics, a distortion arms race, dank memes and/or being intentionally convoluted, than making good music – resulting in a sound that’s often fractious, meandering, cacophonous and riddled with myriad cheapshots and grime/ballroom decorations, in lieu of a sonic identity of its own (which, nevertheless, reviews well, as contrarian currents often do, at first). Thankfully, there remain a handful of dancefloor heroes which pursue the form without compromise or complacency – some of them we’ve had the pleasure and privilege to release material by (Spurz, IMAMI, Le Dom, Deke Soto, to name a few), one of them is sometimes me, and two of them are the most recent addition to our roster, under the banner of La Vie C’est Facile.
Swiss cousins and cycling enthusiasts Nicolas Incerti & Joachim Konrad, PKA La Vie C’est Facile or LVCF, began as party promoters and local DJ’s - their ears finely attuned to emerging new UK sounds, their time devoted to evangelizing and spreading said sounds across the clubs, apartments, basements and gardens of their native Biel/Bienne via their trademark DIY parties. 2015 saw them releasing their aptly-titled “Fun Zone” EP – a grime- and cuica-laden, ebullient and highly musical workout. 2016 sees them deepening the scope of their nimble dissection of dance music with their Tessier-Ashpool Recordings debut single, “Dunk 86”.
A portentous creature at first, “Dunk 86” begins with jacked-in sound design, heavy industrial sound collage, and a chilling two-to-three-note melody which rarely resolves (and is no less unsettling even when it does). As an ever-present metronomic chord pulse sustains the tension throughout, release is granted in the form of the explosive ballet of driven kicks and crunchy found sounds chain-reacting. With its own bespoke, cyberized hype man hardcoded in, it’s almost hard to believe that this beastly sensory tenderizer started as a fun throwback track about the cousins’ shared passion for basketball, and shared birth year of 1986.
Accompanying track “Human Simulator” unfolds in similar fashion, deviating only in being a higher-contrast affair – the sub-zero climate of its drum sections being at times usurped by paradisiac pad clusters of serotonin-boosting warmth.
credits
released November 14, 2016
Mastering by Subsequent Mastering and Liar.
Artwork by crookedbrains, Maria Istrate and Liar.
Argentinian audiovisual artist Amarhac plumbs a number of electronic subgenres for this dystopic EP reflecting on the effects of pollution. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 19, 2022