Bleep

After a decade of personal hardship, a continental leap from Texas to Berlin and an ever-circulating reputation as one of today’s most exciting producers and performers (just ask Björk), J’Kerian Morgan aka Lotic has stuck to the constant rule of flux. She now shapeshifts into her purest form yet with Water, an album that is as elemental as it is complex; a grand and defiant statement sent straight from the core of Morgan’s being.

Water is a record conceived in many shades of light, a genre-bending amalgam that miraculously makes a gorgeous — and often terrifying — whole. The sluggish synths and creased, emotive vocalisations of ‘Come Unto Me’ find the perfect counterpoint in its throttled pseudo-baião rhythms, while the likes of the sparse tone-poem ‘Apart’ and the rousing finale ‘Diamond’ trace an album-long fascination with circular harp patterns. There’s a constant balance of rupturing synthesised noise, near-folk-ish balladry and twisted torch song atmospherics throughout Water, showcasing Lotic’s propensity for unfurling enchanting yarns whilst holding the listener’s attention within oscillating states of consciousness.

Caught between operatic singer-songwriter and electronic deconstructionist, Water is a boundary pushing evolution in the Lotic tale.