Finally, nearly ten years after their first release on Goldmin, and almost ten years after throwing out the idea of doing one in our mail conversation, Lemakuhlar album is happening. The Lemakuhlar guys are true Goldminers as they kept adding tracks to the label’s catalogue from the very beginning. Not so often though. For those who never heard of them, we strongly recommend to have a listen to the 3 eps already out, « Far Away », « Lauper », and « Zuna ». Also « Iplo », an unstoppable surrounding loop where shrill synths coming from the bowels of earth emerge at regular intervals. It is another relevant example of their greatness and how these guys can come up with things no one had ever thought of before them. Just like their track titles (When we asked them if they were correct and final, they replied « yes why not? »), most of their tracks are the spontaneous result of a very special collaborative workflow and a very special setup. At a certain point, we were wondering what would be the next thing they will send us? Where were they heading? Did they want to move towards a kind of organic electronic band? Were they rather looking for more precision, more detail in the very heart of their grooves? Were they big fans of Basic Channel and would they soon be seeking a more dusty dub sound? Yes and no to all these questions, Lemakuhlar is all that. The album is their response. Lemakuhlar has always been beating around the bush, flirting discretely with the most pregnant of their influences yet never copying anyone. If they do get close to another artist’s sound, it is always a bit of joke, as they will end up doing something so far from the initial thing that you won’t recognize it anymore. Using the mixdown similar to Ricardo Villalobos and the structure of Basic Channel is something you can expect from them, the most unpredictable duo we’ve met so far. Lemakuhlar is all that, a laboratory where everything can happen, from the most remarkable and audacious affairs, to the craziest combinations ever. It was somewhere in 2013, in a mail conversation when we first said that a Lemakuhlar album would be a dream coming true. We said that because among the several demos they sent, there were some tracks that definitely were no fillers but were making less sense on an ep or a record. Some of the rarest kind of experiments that their laboratory could infant, things that were proper listening experiences but would have lost most of their credibility and interest on the 12 » we were preparing (Lauper and later Zuna). Yet we liked these tracks and already had a certain attachment to them. Bluezed 3 freezed, Krul De Prul are some of the tracks which could serve this statement best. How about that free-jazz-like break in the middle of the track, coming from nowhere in between two successive sections of intense tidal waves where percussive synths are pounding ears and brains like perforating needles? Same goes to Krul De Prul, a collaboration with Granvat containing a detailed acoustic drum part, sweetened by filtered chords which hands over a completely improvised jazzy guitar part at the end. It was clear these tracks had to be gathered one day but as time was going, we realized Lemakuhlar was a very productive laboratory where dozens of tracks were being done each year. Each of the two artists being an absolute central pillar, each playing the key role yet each also doing music on their own. Then bringing it again in the laboratory to get it seasoned and updated once again, step by step. So it was clear the album would happen but it was also clear that there should be no reason to rush it. Time would tell. The fact is whatever they do, Lemakuhlar gives lessons in drums, synths, groove and structure. And there is more balls and more novelty in what they attempt in any of these tracks than in most of the hype and so-called things presented as innovative these days. Things that will get old ten times faster than most of the tracks of Lemakuhlar in fine form. Then the question is, why are they so discrete, so detached from the scene, almost caricaturing the scene and getting over every genre as if it was a game? That’s their secret but more than one secret is revealed throughout Lema Pat, full of hidden signals into a colorful mixture of brilliant tracks. Polyevolver, Eurorack modular are some of their secret weapons, synthesizers that have spent to much time playing with, tripping from a setting option to another, swinging into an unlimited amount of possibilities, that can be heard on some tracks. While other things can be heard on another tracks. The guys are not gear collectors but their distinctive curiosity have taken them off the beaten path many times, and that musical goldmining throughout every medium of expressing available will probably take them even further, to even less explored regions in the future. In conclusion, Lemakuhlar tracks (and these ones especially), are very representative of whatever can happen in their studio lab and perhaps representing only ten percent of the labs capabilities. They are typical Lemakuhlar fictions, electronic music in disguise, where risks are taken as often as possible, danceable stories where an ear is always kept open for what might come, even to what should not come, from the most frantic galloping rhythms to flickering shivers and the most subtle kind of agitation.