Chloe Lula - Oneiris (Subtext, 2024)
American Chloe Lula is a long-established name in the techno scene. Known for her atmospheric and dark techno sets and her journalistic work as a senior producer at Resident Advisor, Chloe Lula also produces music sporadically. After a residency with Drew McDowall, she finds confidence in her own compositional work, returning to combining the cello, the instrument she played as a teenager, with her familiar industrial and EBM sound. The endresult is the EP ‘Errant Bodies’, released on aufnahme + wiedergabe in 2021, after which the cello gathers dust again. While on ‘Synergy’ - a double EP in collaboration with Ireen Amnes, released by Tresor in 2023 - she still clearly opts for rolling beats with dark textures, this time she convincingly returns to the cello on her debut album ‘Oneiris’. It is a quest in which she not only wants to combine her dark industrial sound with the baritone tones of this stringed instrument. She also seeks a new approach to the instrument and the more tactile experience of making music. With ‘Oneiris’ she takes her first steps. Sonically, she comes close to the universe of Ben Frost: dark ambient drones that devour the bowed instrument, where a dark, anxious feeling prevails, with tracks like ‘Suspension’, ‘Oneiris’ and ‘Mothswarm’. Less immediately poignant though, ‘Oneiris’ lingers in the background for a while, an exercise in rebuilding her confidence in the stringed instrument and the classical music world she has avoided for years. One of the first tracks to emerge is ‘Ellipsis’, built from shimmering, disorientating layers of vibrating strings and abrasive metal, licking, droning bass lines. It is a darkness in which the following track ‘Satori’ also wanders, slightly more quietly. ‘Pretence of Permanence’ especially seduces with its lingering drone, disturbed by icy piercing sounds. For now, she continues to move back and forth between what feels very familiar, as evidenced by the EP ‘Torpor’, which recently hit the shelves. Still, ‘Oneiris’ spins endlessly in the meantime and makes you wonder what Lula’s next choice will be. But first, get lost in this darkness for a while.
Released on Subtext Recordings,