Lotus Eater is a duo consisting of Luca Mortellaro (Lucy) and Seth Horvitz (Rrose), techno artists just as comfortable operating in the uncharted area of experimental music who have gained a cult following, both influencing and challenging the direction of contemporary electronic music. Eschewing the typical instrumentation of techno but still inhabiting its archetypes, Lotus Eater uses synthesised sound and feedback as fundamental sources to generate both textural and percussive elements. A sense of tension and weight emerge from sources that cannot be easily pinpointed. Each release forms a complex narrative from a paradoxically simple and restrained set of sound sources. Officially formed in 2017, Lotus Eater came to life through several collaborations over a number of years, and finally blossomed with the release of its critically acclaimed debut album "Desatura," which Lotus Eater toured live in 2018 - 2019. 2022 sees the release of the second Lotus Eater album "Plasma" and a new audiovisual live project to accompany it. "Plasma" unfolds with exacting precision by exhibiting a point of focus and expanding on it. It uses a single, throbbing pulse to generate a constellation of sounds and rhythms that form around it like a volcanic eruption in slow motion. Playing with our sense of time and weight, "Plasma" feels simultaneously slow and urgent, spacious and immense. Lotus Eater zooms into the infinite abyss and finds not just light, but fire at the end of the tunnel. Will we be saved, or will we burn? More

Serendipities surround the collaboration between Berlin's Stroboscopic Artefacts label founder Lucy and their most recent record with Malaysian Bangkok based emerging artist Wanton Witch. The release culminates in the reimagining of WW debut LP as seen and felt through the lens of Lucy. This is a follow up full-length album by Lucy not approached as a usual remixes record, but instead a fully fleshed out new body of work with the WW material being an integral part of Lucy's sonic palette. Despite the label hiatus during the first year of lockdowns, the isolation of the pandemic helped create a fertile ground for a back and forth between Wanton Witch and Lucy's own distinct sound palettes to collide. With the normal every day pressures of touring lifted and enlightened by WW's sonic world, Lucy has seen this as a positive opportunity to manifest new pathways of connectivity and process a phase of personal growth. Not simply about the breaking of gender lines, but also about the blurring of creative boundaries, especially when making music. Lucy's original patronage of Wanton Witch and her relatively fresh and new voice in the electronic music scene can be seen as a contribution to this idea of dismantling industry norms. In more than a decade of SA operations this is a reset moment for the label's mission focusing on empowering new talent, refreshing and growing with them, presenting a dynamic two-way process bewtween the label as a whole and the individual artists output. Lucy's personal revolution has coincided with Wanton Witch's own discovery of her musical voice and their paths have created a synchronicity. This osmosis of thought and feeling, even through massive distances, can be so real and tangible. Lucy's new album is a testament to the power of connective tissue in collaboration. It is this catalyst of realisation that has allowed the creative work to flourish under the toughest of pandemic conditions. More

SA015 is a split vinyl taken care of by long term label artist, Pfirter, and by a new voice that's been adding to the SA story across the summer, Kangding Ray. Pfirter's 'Caos y Orden Superior' is a weighty odyssey spread across nine minutes. Its opening is languid but somehow relentless as strange synthesised sounds are interrupted by insistent beats. Across the arc of this track 'chaos' and 'order' lose their static definitions, and played over a large club rig this has the potential to throughly disorientate. From here Kangding Ray takes over duties with 'Wars', a fragmented meditation on the darkest side of human nature. Created from hues saturated by the pain of mistakes and regrets, it pulses, rocking gently, swooning in and out. This stunning slice of electronic music acts as a balm for the very wounds that conflict leaves behind. More

His partnership with the label has already resulted in a collaboration with Modern Heads, as well as one of the first entries in the Monad series, and now a fascinating new EP that showcases his talent for testing the limits of perception.
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To start the year 2014, Stroboscopic Artefacts bring you SA021 - a remixes selection of tracks from Lucy's forthcoming LP Churches Schools and Guns. In presenting four of the album cuts in altered impressions, SA021 helps the label keep on re-examining the timbres, tones and textures of techno. First up is the unsettled edit of 'Catch Twenty Two' by the young Italian producer Shapednoise. The infamous Heller novel of the same name (though in numerals rather than letters) was a satirical rampage through the futility and tragedy of conflict; this is also a rampage, littered with opaque utterances of sonic thrust, stood stoutly on an unpredictable and emotional structure of aural dissonance. Following this is the Italian maestro Donato Dozzy and his presentation of 'The Illusion of Choice'. The track bounds along like a train through the jungle, powered by a distant rumble and purring synths. Skittering and melodic percussion sounds a little like birds; the drums are made of rawhide, strong, insistent, controlled. Third in line is the remix of 'Laws and Habits' by Milton Bradley. This cut is hypnosis with little regard - not an accident, but effortless. Metallic distortion buzzes like bees across your head, zipping across the top of delicate hi-hats and an elastic groove. This is a walk through the 4am night, appreciative of the glimmering streetlamps, and fearful of nothing. Last is Eomac's rework of 'The Self As Another', bringing the record to a resonant conclusion. One half of label favourite Lakker, the Irish producer begins with a melody line cut from razor-sharp cloth. The pulsating beat is dressed in metallic shimmer, confidently pursuing a dangerous course. And yet there is a pause amid this brief insistence, a moment of perspective, perspicacity. The record considers its place, and asks for contemplation. With a selection this strong, and of such ideas and identities, this contemplation is surely a worthy vice. This may be a prelude to the full record, but it is a cut made of vehement conviction.
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Stroboscopic Artefacts' third release sees label owner Lucy and underground trailblazer Ercolino, inspired by novelist Michael Ende's imagery, create two visions of a nihilistic future. The 12'' begins with the tale of fear incarnate Gmork, the most power More

Zeitgeber is a project that sees Lucy and Speedy J exploring roots and limits. The duo have both indulged their experimental sides from time to time. Perhaps most notably Speedy J with his mid-'90s run on Novamute, and Lucy on his 2011 full-length for Stroboscopic Artefacts. But Zeitgeber is something more, with two artists pushing each other to go further. SA018 is a single that gives only a slight hint as to what is to come in the shape of a complete LP. 'Body Out' is floor-ready techno with a twist. The textures that lie beneath feel like they're just as important (if not more), slithering and twittering away in constant dialogue with the just-slightly-off-the-grid beat. 'Body In' is the inverse of the A-side, a slow-moving chorus of indescribable ambience. As a precursor to the forthcoming album, it's a perfect taster of the uncompromising sounds yet to be heard. More

SA005 is destined to become a vinyl collectors’ must-have. Frank Martiniq explores a whole new sonic identity on this unique 12”, forging together off-kilter beats and fists full of atmospheric compression. “Blast Corps” opens the EP with a surge of delayed baseline. Crispy static rises from below and echoes swoop and simmer beneath the full blooded base. It builds insistently, the 4/4 structure is infused with far off blips and the dusty sizzles of low-pitched white noise. On “Dark Star” warm dub keeps the sound organic. It’s elemental, the baseline seems enormous enough to have a gravity of its very own and the other elements pull together around its weight. It teases, the breathy elements twitch, fidget, become fully formed but refuse to drop. More

Sharing the same forward-facing approach to techno music, it was about time that Roman DJ and producer Adiel lands her debut EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Following on from an array of 12-inches on her own imprint, including a recent joint effort with Anthony Linell, 'If Not Now When?' is an ode to the all-enveloping strangeness of eternal nights that cuts a path of ecstatic light in the dark.
TRACKLISTING

A1. If Not Now When?
A2. At The Bottom Of The Sea
B1. If Not Me Who?
B2. ESRR
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(10” clear vinyl) Five years on since their last joint outing in Stroboscopic Artefacts Monad series, Speedy J and Lucy team up again as Zeitgeber on 'Seventeen Zero Four', a new three-tracker descending deep into the filthy, tenebrous outskirts of club music.
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Lucy remixes Donato Dozzy, Caterina Barbieri, Ben Klock, and Xhin for Stroboscopic Artefacts' tenth anniversary
TRACKLIST

A1. Donato Dozzy – Sotto Ma Sotto (Lucy Remix)
A2. Caterian Barbieri – Virgo Rebellion (Lucy Remix)
B1. Lucy & Klock – War Lullaby (Lucy Remix)
B2. Xhin – Link (Lucy Remix) More

4p gatefold+DL. Stroboscopic Artefacts releases 'X - Ten Years Of Artefacts', a 13-track album curated by Lucy aka Luca Mortellaro. It celebrates ten years of his label by boldly confirming its raison d'être: a continual redefinition of modern techno. The compilation features tracks from Lucy, Rrose, Zeitgeber, Lotus Eater, Shifted, Efdemin, L.B. Dub Corp, James Ruskin, Denise Rabe, Adriana Lopez, Chevel, Alessandro Adriani and Serena Butler.
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For her first sortie away from her usual recording homes, Adriana steps up in no real unknown territory either, with Stroboscopic Artefacts’ Totem series providing a much suitable shelter for her deep-penetration, quaky club weaponry to grow and expand.
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(10" inch clear vinyl) Firmly entrenched in techno's haziest alcoves, every new record from Denise Rabe is as punishingly hypnotic an experience as it aims to penetrate the deepest laid of your cerebral zones.
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(Clear vinyl) As ever, Brewer's musical output looks to the heart of the genre - remaining true to purist sensibilities that favour economy of sonic components and studio prowess over unnecessary fanfare, but all the while forging new ground & refining a genuinely personal aesthetic. A powerful debut on a label in fine form that represents some of the best of the British artist's work.
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(2xLP gatefold cover) Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. More

Mannequin boss Alessandro Adriani returns to Stroboscopic Artefacts with 'Embryo' - an immersive four-track micro-odyssey spanning across jagged ambient scopes, unmapped acidic grounds and further leftfield-friendly sonic territories, opening up the path for his forthcoming sophomore LP and first ever for Stroboscopic Artefacts, 'Morphic Dreams'.
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