Bleep

Venus Ex Machina’s Lux is an album which moves between widescreen electronic sound design, ominous dark ambiences and driving rhythm tracks that pitch up in various leftfield techno outposts.

At its most immediate, Venus Ex Machina’s music runs with the same experimental club spirit that one finds in explored by labels like NON Worldwide and Hyperdub - both imprints Venus Ex Machina has been involved with in her time. ‘Elephant’ and ‘Nachtspiel’ blend whirring polyrhythms with darkside takes on dub-techno atmospherics to propulsive, hypnotic effect. Some of the other club-adjacent productions of Lux are more boldly confrontational - there is both gqom and the Fade To Mind style to be found in the drum programming of ‘Grace’ while the metallic mid-tempo strut of ‘Mysterium’ comes close to EBM.

Lux’s rhythm-centred joints are made all the more notable for their juxtaposition with the record’s more abstract, shadowy numbers. The LP is bookended by two tracks which largely eschew percussion and journey into strange, surreal electronic hinterlands, while the warping half-time of ‘Blood Moon (Solar Mix)’ switches up the pace of Lux in its midsection.

Venus Ex Machina debuts on AD 93 with a collection of bold and bracing electronic innovations.