Florian Kupfer - Lifetrax II (2023)

German Berlin-based artist, producer & DJ Florian Kupfer returns to the fold for a double volley of raw, elusive DIY club music on new 12” single ‘About U’, alongside a full-length foray into hypnotic, minimalist analogue electronics on ‘Lifetrax II’, the sequel to his 2013 debut release.

After a period of small-run releases & self-released output, including the introspective, radiant ambient of 2021 album ‘Phantom Pain’, Kupfer realizes a full-circle culmination of the kinetic, roughly refined yet stylistically diverse sensibilities he showcased on his seminal debut, and on subsequent releases for L.I.E.S. Records and Ninja Tune imprint Technicolour.

Veering from rugged electro & industrial rhythms and fractured noise to disorientating drone and provocative samples of consumerist critique and plundered media, ‘Lifetrax II’ is an ambitious work of crude, outlying dancefloor exhilaration and resonant, enigmatic experimentation. Low-slung, upfront, relentless distillations of EBM and techno, as well as uniquely rendered incursions of electro and industrial music, sit side by side with delirious vignettes of defective drone and noise.

Consolidating the hi-def atmospheric coherency of ‘Phantom Pain’ with the abidingly abrasive, intoxicating thrust of his initial releases, ‘Lifetrax II’ shifts from brutalist techno rollers (‘Valiant’, ‘Stress Test’) – like Regis on a joyride – to bizarro dub diversions (‘CS II’) and entrancing electro flux (‘Disintegration’, ‘Dereliction’), into the sonorous, screwed interzones of ‘Raphe Nuclei’ and ‘CRS’, where in the case of the latter, a voice recounts the existential implications of playing Monopoly; play the game or be played kids. Altogether, this is music of contrasting volatility and delirium, all masterfully threaded together. Trax of velocity and estrangement, heat and aftermath, made for modern life.