Box Of Luca - Ontario Techno - Artist Album (2020)

Electronic dance music has always been about a process of splinters and grafts, and despite my own admitted urge to narrativize, house and techno are resilient, persnickety beasts that resist tying down. The title of the album 'Ontario Techno' feels ironic: from the sounds generated to the tempos followed, nothing here really smacks of 'club' music, per se. But the record is also a reminder of what club music could be, if it loosened up and weirded out. Despite the materials, this is heavyweight stuff, building up layer upon polyrhythmic layer of percussive thunks and thwacks into a hypnotic, minimalistic churn. You get the sense that there's a pun in the title: this is a music of blunt instruments and a violence as slow as erosion. All of box of luca's tracks on this album chug along in the sub-100BPM range-- making them bearcats to find mates to mix with, granted. But their grooves are unstoppable, hinting at dancehall and techno, and banging out overdriven harmonics to raise the dead. It sounds a little like Konono Nº1 chopped and looped and screwed to headfck extremes. For anyone who wished there were more 'club' music that sounded like a fusion of Lindstrøm and Boredoms.