new music: stream ‘a nomad story’, the new album from electronic composer lawrence lindell. #soundcheck

Producer Lawrence Lindell plays by a different playbook. His latest record A Nomad Story comes out on August 26th, but he’s put the record up on Soundcloud as one single track to allow people to experience it in a single session as he intended it before they can purchase it.

By Nathan Leigh, AFROPUNK Contributor

The album continues the sonic adventurousness from his recent Eclectic Frequencies. Updating the IDM playbook for the age of MIDI control surfaces, Lindell tears apart beats like a Hulked out Richard D. James. It’s an album based around the contrast of beautiful piano arpeggios and drum n bass beats. While that territory has been explored many times over the past 2 decades, Lindell’s playfulness and compelling sense of propulsion keep it dynamic and interesting.

Each track flows from one into the next, and it makes sense why Lindell would want you to hear it as a single track. If anything, this is a record that would probably be best served by a vinyl release. There are clear starts to some tracks, but they play less as new songs than as new movements in a sonata.

The way he plays with a miniscule bit of piano sample, extracting every last bit of sound out of a handful of seconds, gives the record a feeling of a classical theme and variation. If the 90’s IDM movement represented the dance world exploring free jazz, then A Nomad Story is Lawrence Lindell putting on his Bach hat. While it lacks some of the whimsey of Eclectic Frequencies, it’s a more “serious” work from an artist who seems intent on winning electronica away from this generation’s recycled house DJs. If there was any question, the depth and focus of A Nomad Story is all anyone needs to illustrate the difference between a composer and a DJ.

“I spent 7 full days of my life locked away working on something so near and dear to my heart that I don’t want to cheapen or take away from the essence of what this album means. I think we get so use to promos, singles, and everything that builds up to releasing an album, that it affects the way we perceive the art and we don’t really get to enjoy and appreciate it in its purest form.” – Lawrence Lindell