Lensk - Strained

Andrzej Frelek is the co-founder of METICO nightclub in Warsaw, turned electronic producer of inventive electronica under the name Lensk. Recently he released his second EP, Apophenia (Lost Time) via JEROME. His sounds are eclectic - sometimes glitchy and ambient, elsewhere rooted in the club. Apophenia opens on a track called “Interlude”. (I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a track called “Interlude” so much.) Found sounds and intimate textures create a surreal spaciousness, as regular percussive clicks intermingle with blasts of white noise like jets of steam from an exhaust. Meanwhile, spectral voices bounce around, as if they are ushering you through a damp cavern, the consonants in their whispers boosted into static ASMR-esque clicks and pops.

In “Strained” we are treated to similar whispers and astral tones, but above all this track is a celebration of percussion. Even the clubbier, ulta-synthetic drum tones resonate and are interlocked with such deliberateness and technique they sound like a skilled percussionist is playing an electronic Kendang.

With this EP, Lensk’s second, he promotes himself out of the ‘ones to watch’ category. There is no question of his spellbinding talent.