Leck Meine Bahn is the newest heavy-hitting electro duo around. Composing of the director of Genevan label Brainwaves Estebahn and Renens-based producer Yolek, Leck Meine Bahn proves that the sum of two equally talented, innovative and experimental producers can create something even more fruitful and exciting than their individual counterparts: magic.
Homonymous as their duo name, the 8-track LP released on Brainwaves has proven to us once again that there is something different in the water in Switzerland, causing each Brainwaves release to be more magnifying and in a realm of its own than the previous.
The opening track of the album "Jesus Dub" interpellates chorus-layered church song with aggressive and IDM drum programming akin in intricacy to the previous releases of the individual producers. Leck Meine Bahn can be only described as the child of a serendipitous affair between post-dubstep and acid-infused electro, mingled with the blood of jealous ex-lovers trance and breakbeat. Perhaps some of the energetic fury enwrapped in the tracks can be accounted for by Yolek's own character, who Brainwaves describes as an "alien punk" with "a bowl haircut [that] can be spotted in the dirtiest caves and raves in the Swiss Romandie region". Though outside of his questionable haircut, Yolek supposedly has an "unhealthy obsession for machines and herbal medicines", a "lack of understanding for human interpersonal relationships" and a "deep knowledge of the inner structures of trance and bass music as well as a passion for heavy low kicks".
The latter point rings most true in the 2nd track of the LP "Renens low kick", pushed forward by a distorted and dirty kick-drum reminiscent more of a growl than an 808. Though a personal highlight of the LP is LMB's "Still Don't Give A Stab" which begins with a solo acid blow that blasts through the sonic madness before flowering into IDM breaks, a high acid synth-line and post-dubstep mania before a harp-like melody enters, bashfully, beseeching some sort of resolution. "Cops Ain't Shit" is another standout of the LP, which plays with distorted vocals echoing the song's title, with a similarly distorted kick that ties the track together.
While Yolek's solo track contribution to the LP "Breakfast" extends the same high energy and groove as the other tracks, Estebahn's solo track "Validnation" provides more a gentle accompaniment to Leck Meine Bahn. More raw and stripped back than other offerings of the LP, it supplies a falling action for the narrative of the LP, though still ripe with trance vocals and meditating on an acid beat. "Frozen Dub" is the final excellence of the LP, a deconstructed canvas of vocal calls, acid springs, broken beat and thrashing drumming. When you reach "Frozen Dub" it feels as though you have entered new and uncharted territory after travelling in time and space, led by your astronomical guides LMB.
Where Brainwaves says that Leck Meine Bahn is the "sonic outcome of a year-long battle between two alien sociopaths", for me it feels more like a fateful meeting of talented producers ready to reinvent modern electro. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the core team and friends of Brainwaves are pioneering the future of electro music, and it's an intergalactic journey you're not going to want to miss out on.
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