Taran & Lomov - Semper Supra (2024)

Latvian duo Taran & Lomov present Semper Supra - their debut LP on their own label Amber Muse; a refined and accomplish long player that showcases the tip of an iceberg patiently built across two dedicated and long-spanning careers in the music industry. Together, the pair have managed to earn the coveted stripes of jack of many, master of many across a fruitful and symbiotic 20 years. Theyve turned their hands to promotion, production, remixing, radio hosting, music journalism and DJing. At this point, they have a gilded resume that includes support for their releases from the likes of Jane Fitz and Laurent Garnier, releases on W&O Street Tracks, Josh Winks Ovum Recordings and Dense & Pikas Kneaded Pains as Queer On Acid and of course – their basecamp – the Amber Muse Radio show. Musically, Semper Supra is a genre-flexing trip with its roots in early 2000s Minimal and late 90s Electronica. 9 tracks bearing flecks of influence from labels like Time Passages, Perlon and Warp as well as artists such as Black Dog, Metamatics, Binh and Jan Jelenik meld in a head-twisting brew - one that caters to listeners on any point in the spectrum between after-hours raver to armchair astronaut. The glue in the record is the subtly haunting energy omitted by the synths, sweeps and atmospherics that course through the album. The spectral glow these conjure hangs gently over a variety of bpms and intensities, keepings things suffused in a dubby fog that gives a living, breathing sense of space and atmosphere. Case and point being Nano Crab - a patient, frosty recording that stacks energy in subtly folding layers of mangled, otherworldly signals and primal rhythms. Slow East follows up with a skeletal Electro track that oozes with an ominous mood often clocked in Nicolas Lutzs extended sets. The warped robotics and cold sonics of Slickers are given life and mobility via groove and clever sequencing while Corp whips up into a more frenzied zone. Alarm tones burnt and bit crushed while drums move with the sort of urgency required for boiling point dance floors before the title track provides an allaying landing pad as it scatters pin-prick melodies across a wide, icy soundscape.