Obscure | Contents | Feedback

LRS is the musical alter ego of 25 year old Simon Swain, long time denizen of the Wellington City dance scene. Syntax is an album length adventure through his earlier sonic experimentations.

Hailing from Wellington, New Zealand, The LRS has been twisting minds in the capital for the past five years with rare freeform live electronic sets, wrenching half crafted, half improvised dubbic techno sounds from a birds nest of wires boxes and blinking lights.

The cream of the homemade LRS tracks have been rendered down to produce the Syntax album - a giant slab of downtempo electrosonics. Syntax is a brooding dubbed out soundtrack of life in the windy city. Room-filling pulses and textures intertwine with sassy synch grooves to create a convolving soundscape of organic warmth and clockwork rhythms that form the basis of Syntax.

From The Parallel Universe:

Homegrown electronica feels like it's coming of age with albums like Syntax by Wellington project LRS (Obscure). I refuse to be an apologist for local music and with this album I don't need to; it can stand on the international electronica scene with pride. A lot of the time there's not a lot happening between it's skeletal rhythms, bringing to mind some of the minimal German techno that's so hip to namedrop. It also reminds me of early period Autechre (for its clean spaciousness), and Seefeel (for it's queasy time-stretching ability and enjoyable wisps of hallucinogenic sfx).

From Remix:

With no idea what LRS stands for and the fact that it's New Zealand home-grown, I have to let myself listen to Syntax with an open mind. I didn't expect to be clubbed out, and definately didn't think it'll be easy listening, but I also didn't foresee the LRS to sound this good. It's very deep, dark and moody showing some rare traits in New Zealand music, bold enough to make music he likes and not necessarily what the general raver would like.

The greatest moments on the album lie in Simon Swain's spectacular production. Utilising a darker and more brooding palette of sounds than I've heard before. Not much happens melodically, which makes it slightly hard to take in at a pop level. Pop is not what it's all about though. File under obscure electronica. File next to the Aphex Twin or Black Dog because the LRS shows NZ can do it just as good.

Deep and dubbed out abstrackt techno... Syntax is a soundtrack to life in the windy city... an album length adventure through two years of sonic experimentation and calculated composition... downtempo room filling pulses intertwine with sassy synch grooves to render a soundtrack of distant organic warmth and clockwork ticking precision.

Receiving wicked reviews in New Zealand's music media, Syntax contains 72 minutes of sound culled from the archives of The LRS, sculpted and blended into a scary sonic adventure.