s. olbricht: purpleblue

Following 2016’s ‘For Perfect Beings’, S Olbricht, makes a welcome return to Lobster Theremin with his ‘Purpleblue’ EP, a four-track excursion that weaves in and out of machine driven techno and shimmering ambient gestures. What at first seems like a departure from his trademark skewed and sludgy sound is quickly realised as a shifting and ever evolving journey through the outer limits of electronic music. Opener ‘Enju’ is a pounding, sprawling and mechanical behemoth, born from deep within a rolling maze of endless encounters and possibilities. Title track ‘Purpleblue’ is a symphony in static, punctuated by a single, ominous digital tick moving from Ultra Violet Purple to deep shades of Mississippi Blue. A trilling, glacial hi-hat beckons in the soft thud of an arpeggiated, playful step sequence which is then in turn overcast by a gentle swaying melody in the distance. Flipping over, ‘T’ is a raw and pumping battle to the death. Looping drums, raw percussion and signals from a dystopian landscape come clattering into view. A proper peak time slice of dark room ammunition. Fresh from an ever living and breathing 90s warehouse ‘Hrom’ closes out the EP. A sub-aquatic compression dive played on the cast iron bottoms of sunken nuclear subs charged in to the beating, bugged out bleeps of a faltering rhythm box.