Lee Gamble

Koch (Pan)

Lee Gamble means to “drag you in and out of a space.” The Londoner’s output for Berlin imprint Pan remits in twos. 2012’s Diversions 1994-1996 and Dutch Tvashar Plumes were concomitant statements, and now Koch arrives only a month after the Kuang EP. At first, its textures move in identifiable forms; stretched ambient hues hollow out jungle etchings like sheet lightning in the darkening gradient of a cumulus cloud front. Then, the discernible evaporates, and a balance between sweeping ambience and the hallucinatory nexus of cadence warps Koch chimerically. Nothing stays sheltered; enclosed receptacles volcano into open space without warning. The LP cover arts a vaporous ocean mirrored by an overhead slate stream, and such disorienting landscape floods the album’s polarizing sagacity. “Untitled Reversion” and “Fame Drag” flow gaseously without rhythmic underpinning, until a track like “Motor System” protrudes into a displaced Detroit techno capsule snowglobed under London fog. The lucid dreamlike hold of Koch carries unparalleled allure, elevating Lee Gamble’s already adept soundscapes to quicksand plateaus.

This article appears in September 26 • 2014.

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