galaxy lane: voyager 1

If you were to dash through cross-dimensional portals somewhere on the other end of the multiverse for a routine, there's good chances you'd be listening to Galaxy Lane's 'Voyager 1' full blast in your saucer. Next in line on Lone Romantic, the mysterious producer from outer-space lands a particularly delectable debut transmission fuelled on wilder-than-wild electro grooves, glitchy radio disruptions and boy, a healthy dose of laser-precise early rave breaks. Interlarded with cryptic vox samples drowned in distortions and sonar echoes scanning an endless horizon of unknowns, 'Take Off' takes us for a zero-G drift across the greater void as an introduction. It's with the second track, 'Landed', that the engine eventually starts to bolt and race, drawing us into a planetary waltz of sorts, as Saturn rings go hula hoop and the moon's craters get irresistibly itchy. The spaceship's dropped anchor off a sun-deprived belt of mercury lakes, and hostile alien territories are ahead. No time for laser battles and other robot-assisted jousts, Galaxy Lane's here to wake up the uninitiated from their ignorant slumber and hand them the universal truth on a platter: old-school is the only school. On 'Explore', the groove gets further epic as ominous sub-bass swashes, rattling drums, playful bleeps and FX-drenched synth bursts collide and melt dangerously. One to leave wisps of vapour in its wake, the track revs up and blazes its way across lysergic extra-terrestrial scapes - whilst bushes teem with a neon-coloured flora and translucent, multi-headed fauna. Back on board the shuttle, it's time to 'Return'. A further pared-down affair, the final cut draws back to a deeper, more anxiogenic kind of ambience, where a skittish and pacey drum programming interlaces with a heavy machinic hiss, busy pistons noises and raucous gargles to weave a singular home-coming finale. Look through the window and all you'll see is an ever-shrinking grain of sand in an off-the-scale planetary system. Dizzying.