Lawrence: Lowlights From the Past and Future 
Mule Electronic

The title may not appear to bode well but its dour sensibility is very much in keeping with Lawrence's purposely mournful (some might say morose) but, more importantly, exquisite music. The seductive charm of past Lawrence affairs The Absence of Blight and The Night Will Last Forever rendered us helpless, and Peter Kersten's latest outing differs little in that regard, even if it is a ragtag, seventy-six minute assortment of singles, B-sides, and remixes.

Lithe, clean, elegant: three words that spring to mind when listening to Lawrence. One pictures Kersten's workspace and imagines a pristine environment where everything is in place and with no clutter to be seen. Vibrant originals like “Friday's Child” exude incandescent gleam, with shimmering melodies and bell tones languorously floating over minimal bass lines and subtly jacking house beats, while the hypnotic pings, graceful piano motifs, and snappy beats that grace “Spark” (first heard on a 2004 Ghostly EP) still sound great. Variations on the Lawrence theme like “If You Can't Understand” and “Further” evidence no drop in quality either.

On the remix front, Superpitcher's “Happiness” never wears out its welcome, and suffers little when drenched in Lawrence 's silken melancholia. Gloomy Badalementi-esque chords imbue Antonelli's “The Morning” with prototypical Lawrence gloom, but they're offset by willowy keyboard fireflies that illuminate the darkness, and a steaming house pulse and oscillating bass line breathe life into the track too. The high-velocity trance-house treatment of Turner's “My Aeroplane Mania” sparkles too, while a less cohesive handling of Egoexpress's “Aranda” builds a bridge of whistles to connect folk on one side and acid-house on the other. Surrounded by otherwise solid material, the tune seems a misstep but one hardly significant enough to argue against the collection as a whole.

October 2007