Lay2g by Emma dj

Emma dj doesn't give much away when it comes to his music. Twelve effortless stabs at post-bloghouse electronics brings the Paris-based, Finnish producer’s oeuvre out of the trap torpor of recent releases on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label, into the ecstatic crush of a world in chaos with the Lay2g LP on Danse Noire. Looking back at the late-2000s, early-2010s collision of the club and the stage, the album beckons to another era. It’s one of warehouse bands and indie sleaze, dance punk and industrial noise; a turn-of-the-millennium time where youth culture was rife with an after-9/11 nihilism so potent that an electro-drone band with a name like “Fuck Buttons” could be part of an Olympic opening ceremony.

Lay2g’s direct and dance-floor-friendly tracks with meaningless titles gleefully bump up against each other, whether in the crumbling industrial force of “I Fuck With Lies” or the propulsive gabber tempo of “Kd9.” It’s inspired by Emma’s early music education through hype.fm music charts and Dim Mak Records, with its echoes of Atari Teenage Riot’s digital hardcore or The Bloody Beetroots’ hoover synths. Crunchy, distorted, subs prop up the epic organ patches and math-y rhythmic structures of “RR.dkn.” A lumbering bass on “bQosYe” follows the lead of shattered top-end breakbeats and a syncopated vocal cut-up.

Managing the pain of contemporary reality with a sense of humor and humility is fundamental to the Nordic artist’s output, whether it’s in the wobbly subs of 2019’s Support Your Local Enemies or the offhand titling of 2023’s follow-up to Godrime, g0drm2. Meanwhile, Lay2g is a powerful, lightly-sardonic signpost in the no wave and mutant disco continuum, and a welcome harbinger of Paris’ deeply buried underground as it rears its uninhibited head.