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The first EP for Have Demons, a first gush, entirely hopeful for this young formation between Submerged (Kurt Gluck), nem0 (Lacey Wood) and Luke Lund, an EP resounding of dub, dark ambient, downtempo, iIIbient with a slightly “hop” side — lacking the “Hip”.

It’s probably their common influences, tastes and collaborations for and with artists such as Scorn (Mick Harris), Justin Broadrick, SIMM (Eraldo Bernocchi) and Ice that teamed up Kurt, Luke and nem0 for a common project with the motto: “Dark hop is not dead!”

At this point, I would like to compare the spirit behind this EP with another excellent formation from the ‘90s. I am talking about “Ice”, sadly somewhat sunk into oblivion. “Ice” provides this review with a motif, i.e. Justin Broadrick. “Ice” also includes Kevin Martin, present also in Techno Animal or, the more famous, The Bug.

It’s no wonder that we can compare this release with sounds such as Scorn, SIMM, Ice or some releases including Justin Broadrick since we know that Submerged, the Ohm Resistance label founder, has pressed and distributed several Scorn releases but also the wonderful album ‘Visitor‘, a dark downtempo, iIIbient release by SIMM (Eraldo Bernocchi).

Submerged has been making music since 1995 as a multi-instrumentalist musician and appears on several formations like Zerfallmensch and You Will Choose Fire, the new electronic shoegaze band comprising Kurt and Lacey, also present on Have Demons. He also appears as a founding member of Method Of Defiance, including the master Bill Laswell, but also by Gator Bait Ten, a studio band including Ted Parsons, Mothboy and Coen Bros, sound editor M. Gregor Filip, with the release ‘Harvester‘ on Ohm Resistance. And his major project The Blood Of Heroes features Bill Laswell, end.user and, one more master, Justin Broadrick. In my view, ‘War‘ off ‘The Waking Nightmare‘ is a track one has to hear!

In the beginning, the roots of Ohm Resistance focused on drum n’ bass productions. But the label proposes a great diversity of music styles to equal the various musical orientations of Submerged. And if Ohm Resistance needed to find a new theme for the future, dark hop would be the perfect answer!

I could be talking about this great label’s records for hours on end, but I will shift my focus to Luke Lund and what I could learn about him.

Lukas Alexander Lundén, aka Luke Lund is a Finnish self-taught multi-instrumentalist, producer, remixer and the head of Terranean Recordings. Luke was born in 1992 and grew up with a fascination for film and videogame soundtracks where he found music like Photek, The Orb, Clint Mansell, Aphex Twin, Autechre and The Future Sound Of London. He started experimenting with audio manipulation in the spring of 2008 upon discovering the works of Justin Broadrick – which was a great influence and the gateway to permanent interest in industrial, noise, dub and experimental music in general.

Terranean Recordings is his first label and was created to connect his different projects but it quickly expanded to a platform for other artists as well. In collaboration with Bartosz Szturgiewicz (Wounds), the label produces drone ambient, abstract, minimal, techno dub, dark wave and experimental sounds.

nem0 (Lacey Wood) of Have Demons and of You Will Choose Fire, was discovered by Submerged after making music alone in the wilderness of Montana. She grew up listening to Motown, British invasion rock, Swedish pop (Lacey is a specialist as concerns ABBA, Roxette, Ace Of Base, etc), Hip Hop, hardcore and jungle. She produces beats on whatever gear she can find, from Nintendo DS to hardware drum machines, but also plays the guitar, bass guitar, keyboards and sings.

Luke Lund started the project Have Demons by half-jokingly asking Kurt: “Where is the dark hop revival? It’s always been bothering me that I’m too young and I missed it!”. Kurt Submerged answered that he was totally up for the idea and the project started between Finland and the US.

Luke sent some beat loops to Kurt and nem0, half in 4/4 time, half in odd time signatures as for the track ‘Get Out‘, signed on 6/4 tempo, the kind of tempo which gives us a very nice shifted ambiance.

Kurt responded with basslines, bass guitar and Virus Synth, nem0 was running on drum machines and playing Yamaha DX27, as well as engineering the session at Red Site I in Portland, Oregon.

The project was quickly finished with arrangements by one set of revisions back and forth between the 2 production teams.

I’d just like to give one short word about the sound of this EP, which, I think brings us back to somewhat forgotten sounds, to a time when sounds were made using any electronic boxes could be found.
Luke, Kurt and nem0, all have a great interest for the analogue or hybrid design, which gives us this groovy, dark and dirty sexy sound today.
But with these guys you also have 3 very dedicated viewers of Twin Peaks, and admirers of David Lynch‘s work and use of sound design.

Have Demons is already working on a second EP! I’m really looking forward to it!

Yasmine Van Houten