thirty seventh of our "States United" show on @n10-as, with guest @gab_ii

States United 37: ｇａｂ_ｉ

LAVURN is the debut self-titled album from Lavurn Lee, a singer, songwriter, producer, performer and DJ from the inner suburbs of Toronto. He has also lived and worked in Sydney, Hong Kong and Berlin. His music is an emotionally complex assemblage of processed vocals, filtered pads, surgically programmed drums, haunting melodic fragments and hazy textures. This 13 track album of sparse, emotive and experimental R&B is his second for SUMAC and his first under his own name, following a previous record under the name Fake in 2018. Lavurn was made over three years between Toronto, Berlin and Hong Kong in close dialogue with SUMAC founders DJ Plead and T.Morimoto.

Previously, as Cassius Select, he has established himself as a unique voice in dance music, releasing on cult labels such as Unknown to the Unknown, Accidental Jnr, Hypercolour, Banoffee Pies, Raw Basics and Bruk Records. His side projects include collaborations with vocalists such as VV Pete and Daemon, his previous experimental R&B aliases Guerre and Fake, and BV (alongside Marcus Whale and DJ Plead).


THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS ON THE MAKING OF LAVURN

“I’m trying to make pop music. Not in the industry sense, but in the way that everyone is making their own type of pop music. It wants to be listenable, so it can create emotions. I come from bedroom song writing in the age of the internet. The lyrical content and sounds reflect my demeanor. Big ego with low sense of self-worth. Constantly posturing. At once both strong and weak. I don’t always trust my abilities. I don’t have the voice to produce contemporary radio R&B. I don’t do traditional harmonies, mine are all over the place.

It's the first time I'm writing about my own life in a literal sense. I spent years writing love songs having never been in a relationship. Whereas this feels very raw as a reflection of my experiences. To me the album sounds insular because it was made that way, in isolation. The vocals are used in a sampled way. A chorus for one track might be chopped and turned into another hook. A verse for one song is half timed and used for the chorus of another. Auto-Tune is used heavily. Some tracks are ‘written’ by pulling different beats, textures and vocals from different tracks and seeing what fits together. I tried to take self-sampling further and further. I was thinking of ways to world-build.

Most of the lyrical content on the album is about dealing with a breakup. But the album doesn’t reflect a break-up because it’s completely one sided. It doesn’t reflect the reality that I was an awful person during the relationship. Really it's an inward study of a reaction to rejection. It’s ambivalent. The attitude is “hey imma do me and improve myself”, while also desperately wanting someone back (for all the wrong reasons). There’s a veneer of self-improvement and healing. But it’s all performance. I used to think all the songs had a kind of toxic intent because of this. Trying to impress someone in a way that would make them want to return to you. In retrospect I understand the songs differently. They’re not perfect. A bit confused in their vulnerability. Maybe quite sweet in a way. I think it’s healthy for me to see the lyrics on the album as directed at myself. It’s an album about self-love. I learnt that making music can be a kind of self-care.” 
credits
released February 16, 2024

Written, recorded, produced and mixed by Lavurn Lee
Mastered by T.Morimoto
Photography by DJ Plead

LAVURN - STILL

from 'Transcorporal Portal', out now on Somewhere Press
@slowfoam

Transcorporeal Portal

Bandcamp

Slowfoam - Divine Morpho, Shimmering (feat. RAN PARK)

Recorded at Operator Radio, February 18, 2022.
By Casimir Geelhoed (@casimirsound) & Anni Nöps (@anninops).

Lawrence English - Antarctica
Jana Winderen - Aquaculture
Eric Holm - Surface Detail
Casimir - Trail (Emergence)
Drippin - End Effect
Szelag - While You Were Sleeping I Was Blood Red
B.P. & Undveld - Entrance To The Wilderness
Hiro Kone - A Fossil Begins To Bray
N1L - Undo The Anthropocene
LXV - Fever Dreaming
Fis & Renick Bell - The Inner Turmoil Of Virtual Sparrows
Diego Navarro - Inside The Mirror Room
Ljudvägg - Skogsrå (Dayin Remix)
Angelo Harmsworth - Untitled
Casimir - Air CPA
knifebody - this shit is lonely
Martina Bertoni - Music For Empty Flats
Farwarmth - Amber Weight
Martina Bertoni - Bits
Loke Rahbek - A Mess Of Love
Liisa Hirsch - Mechanics Of Flying

Whitespace XI

Monthly hub for club geographies, place-specific constructions, architectural musics and the production of sonic space and scale. 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/astral-plane/episodes/astral-plane-16th-november-2024

Topias w/ Gabriel Meier 161124

Recovery Channel's November guest is none other than the wonderful MAU from Japan. After having rinsed his first sensual ep ‘Wet Map’, they asked if he wanted to be part of our Outsiders series. And so it happened. 

He says: “I tried to connect current electronic music with post-classical works there is a bit of intent to bridge the sound from different regions”.

🌐 "Outsiders" is our daily show hosted by labels, collectives, agencies, venues, clubs, ... worldwide
📡 Connect with the Outsiders, every day, at 9 am or 9 pm CET
🔗 kioskradio.com

Outsiders: Recovery Channel w/ MAU @ Kiosk Radio 19.11.2024

https://soundcloud.com/herman240p

https://www.retreatradio.net/hos

HOS #36 (17/11/24)

Sounds from the rave margins to the weirdo afters with Hesska and guests. 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/castles-in-the-sky/episodes/castles-in-the-sky-28th-november-2024

Castles In The Sky w/ Hesska 281124

Angelic Waters

Recorded 30th December 2024.
Warwick, UK.

Track title blatantly lifted from Calling Occupants Of Interplanatery Craft

Voices From The Future

The Vast Unknown

"Distant Haze" is an ambient track that evokes the quiet, suspended feeling of watching the horizon dissolve into mist. It opens with soft, shimmering pads that ebb and flow like slow-moving fog, while faint textures—distant wind, a low hum, the echo of something unplaceable—drift in and out of focus. The piece evolves gradually, almost imperceptibly, as subtle harmonic shifts suggest both melancholy and calm.
A delicate, reverb-soaked drone underpins the composition, creating a sense of vast space and gentle disorientation—as if you’re standing on the edge of memory, where sound and silence blur together. “Distant Haze” doesn’t so much progress as it unfolds, like light filtering through clouds at dawn—familiar, yet unreachable. It’s music for stillness, reflection, and the quiet spaces between thought.

DistantHaze

𝘢 𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵

Record label based in Glasgow. Distro by Boomkat, sub-label Somewhere Between Tapes.