Upfrontbeats | Lee Van Dowski

Lee Van Dowski

- Lee Van Dowski - Cerca Trova

Mobilee Records | 26.02.2016

The LP’s title, translates to ‘Search / Find’ and like the name, sees the Geneva-based artist digging deep into his musical repertoire. The 14-track work harks back to his diverse musical roots, when an initial passion for techno soon led the artist into more experimental territory with the likes of Autechre, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Richard Devine and Otto Van Schirac, fuelling his musical obsession.

The artist ‘ a father of two twin boys ‘ says he wanted to leave something for his sons to remember him by. Likewise, since his last artist album ‘As Told On The Eve Of” with Quenum released on Soma in 2006, he wanted to surprise people, while challenging himself to create a narrative beyond the dancefloor.

And anyone who has paid even cursory notice of his productions over the years will notice the expansive palette of sounds the Frenchman has explored through the work, which although diverse, flows smoothly from one multi-layered moment to the next.

From the glitchy stylings of opening track ‘Creating Me’, to the ”I.L.A.N.E.N.O’, a dreamy ambient collaboration with old friend Caroline Hervé (aka Miss Kittin), that was created after they spent a weekend in the mountains with Lee’s kids, the producer sets about building a creative and cohesive trip across 70 minutes.

There’s ‘1+1’, a grand, orchestral breakbeat-driven cut awash with strings and vocal harmonies and the evocative ‘Repli Tactique’, an intoxicating wall of sound, driven by rich Flamenco-style guitar licks, before Lee shifts the momentum up a gear for the stunning electro breaks of ‘The One’. The grin-inducing ‘Dans Tes Yeux’ is five minutes of pure, driving breakbeat euphoria, before the tempo is taken into gritty acid techno territory with ‘Toran’. To close, he then brings us down again with the beautiful title track, followed by the delicate piano-laden concluder ‘Sinon Toi’.

An artist reborn since joining Anja Schneider’s Mobilee Records in 2013, the album follows on from Lee’s outstanding past 12 months that saw him drop releases on Cocoon, Bedrock, Suara, Rebellion (sub-label of Crosstown Rebels), This and That and of course Mobilee, home to ‘050504’, one of the year’s biggest techno tracks.