low jack: lighthouse stories

Modern Love very rarely reaches out to artists outside of its immediate surroundings; it's happened just a couple of times since the label's inception in 2002. But there's something about Philippe Hallais that compelled the label to ask him if he wanted to do something together. Hallais has released music on a bunch of cool labels (L.I.E.S., The Trilogy Tapes, Delsin, In Paradisum), but upon hearing the first tracks recorded for Lighthouse Stories, it was obvious that he was hitting on something new -- a kinda weird slow/fast dance music that sounded like a footwork variant sewn up with an exotic production style impossible to pin down. These tracks eventually splintered off into different directions, held together by a strong sense of narrative and motion harking back to a teenage obsession with turntablism, Detroit electro, and ghetto house, and eventually juke and grime. Although Hallais had previously been focusing on more industrial dancefloor variants, for Lighthouse Stories he turned to these foundational influences, as well as his love of mixtapes and sound collages full of unfinished ideas, skits, and experiments -- all things that inform the flow of this album. Lighthouse Stories captures a sense of nostalgia well, but is also a futuristic vision full of that exploratory, vibrant spirit that's so hard to find in electronic music these days. Frames of reference are hard, but in places it reminds one of the dusted swagger of Anthony Shake Shakir, the aquatic Drexciyan movements of Ultradyne, a loose-limbed take on shangaan, and Actress at his most submerged. But ultimately, it's an album made by a producer looking to his personal history while breaking new ground, pushing ahead with little regard to convention and ultimately ending up with something completely unique: a kind of intimate journal rendered in bright colors and odd shapes. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton. Pressed at Pallas. Cover artwork and insert designed by Will Bankhead.