Venus Ex Machina

Wavey, dystopian industrial-electronic tripscapes from NON and Hyperdub affiliate and multi-disciplinary artist Venus Ex Machina. F*ck Cyberpunk 2077, this is cyberpunk 2021. She's made an AI opera, been involved in various art projects and composed for film, now Venus Ex Machina has deployed her debut full-length - a sprawling dystopia of decaying industrial beatscapes, squealing noise, drones and disorienting sound design. "Lux" isn't just a collection of odds and ends, it's a narrative universe that coaxes full mental attention - described in the press release as "a requiem for an earth beset by environmental change." 'Blood Moon (Solar Mix)' welds grimy downtempo dub bass with searing feedback and an elegiac choral vortex; 'Grace' is a kinetic club cut that has the gritty energy of post-punk and the bioluminescence of science fiction all at once, with rolling percussion and queasy synth drones. Elsewhere 'Nachtspiel' sounds like early A Guy Called Gerald and Popol Vuh all at once (the bleep techno x kosmische axis is one we wanna see more of plz) and the album's epic finale 'Paraquat' combines no-input mixing desk noise shards with eerie, blissful ambience. Cinematic, disquieting, good stuff.