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LUCIANBLOMKAMP – Help Me Out

You may have heard the name LUCIANBLOMKAMP – perhaps because you’ve been following the enormous beats scene in Melbourne, or perhaps because his all caps name demands it be shouted upon each utterance. Listen to his latest single Help Me Out and you’ll see why he feels the need to shout.

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The beauty of LUCIANBLOMKAMP’s new hand-crafted single Help Me Out is in the interplay of it’s three acts.

While some alternative electronic music is preoccupied with an exploration of sound, producers like those in Filthy Children or our recent discovery Elbee utilising the infinite sonic possibilities that the synthesiser affords, LUCIANBLOMKAMP and his affiliates down in the city of rain and alleyways focus on arrangement and flow.

The three acts of Help Me Out and the interplay between them is what makes the single a unique work, BLOMKAMP’s classical education shining through – perhaps the word composer applies more to BLOMKAMP’s work than the word producer.

The song doesn’t use many props, but every single one is completely necessary – there’s no superfluity here. Like Chekhov’s gun, each element introduced in act one is utilised again, the sea of bassy booms and snappy claps, the arp sequence and the pitched down vocals are all reworked in the climax of act two and the resolving fade of act three. I’m not going to describe the parts in detail, because the beauty of the track is in the surprise.

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For a downtempo and slightly (might I dare use the A word) ambient producer, it’s a little strange that LUCIANBLOMKAMP feels the needs to shout his name. Perhaps it is because of BLOMKAMP’s position in a scene that feels so ambiguous and indistinct – he needs to shout over the noise of the rest of the already cramped Melbourne beats scene.

Stylistically, BLOMKAMP’s latest borrows a lot from the Shlohmo/Burial school of thought – indeed this song could have been released under almost any downtempo, post-dubstep guise and nobody would bat an eyelid.

Basically what I’m getting at is the old ‘it all sounds the same’ statement about modern electronic music. For as long as we keep lapping up these hand-crafted beats from the likes of Guerre, Japanese Wallpaper or LUCIANBLOMKAMP, it’s gonna keep sounding the same, and I guess that’s no bad thing.

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