[sic] Magazine

SE – L36

L36 is a bit like the musical equivalent of brown paper packages tied up with strings (and I henceforth insist you remove any and all instances of homely, singing families brought about from the equation, otherwise it just won’t work the right way).

The difference is that L36 isn’t quite so nondescript from the outset. It is, however, mysteriously alluring and rather unassuming in its effectiveness. It’s also a welcome surprise to discover that it contains a number of my favourite things (which retain the necessary fondness with their remembrance), and has the ability to be warm comfort on a wintry day.

Primarily downtempo electronica, L36 also draws on shades of post-rock and industrial, tempering it occasionally with hints of drone and some acoustic guitar work. Stitching it all together are the kind of glitchy, reverberating beats that tends to garner the IDM tag. The end result is an album that’s perfectly designed for bringing a bit of calming shimmer to your dusk, dawn and every moment that falls in between.

While L36 does have an underlying element of nostalgic charm such as befitting my initial analogy, rather than rely on it for appeal, it’s been restrained in favour of less obvious (but perhaps even older) tactics. SE (aka Sebastian Ehmke ) may have taken a few steps further back and in the direction Sun Tzu , who wrote “Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

While there is no battle strategy inherent in L36 (nor does it ever go so far as to take the tack of soundlessness, obviously), its subtly varying shades work very well to systematically move you exactly where it wants to, creating more than just mood but impression as well. Not content to simply be a good soundtrack for dusk to dawn, tracks like ‘Mimikry’ and ‘Lily’ often evoke a similar sense of emerging light no matter which time of day they’re heard. In order for that to work as well as it does, it means that there is always at least one foot firmly planted on the darker side of things. Sometimes it’s just the little toe, but it’s there none the less.

‘Beton’, for example, a particular standout, is a low-key, almost lumbering track that is infused with the sound of a primal sigh (as opposed to a scream), yet it neither feels weighted or inhibited, in fact it rather more sounds like an awakening from a fragile anguish, albeit carefully measured.

Overall, it’s a softly spoken album that works quietly and unobtrusively. While it occasionally slips from the foreground it never quite gets entirely lost from view, nor is it altogether less effective for doing so. Moving fluidly through sounds that range from dramatically foreboding to a beautifully glimmering lightness, L36 is ultimately a graceful and elegant hour of ambience, and those strings that tie it all together definitely come from the heart.