- An ultra-progressive and cerebral blend of jungle, club and pop music.
- For LCY, reality is malleable—a breachable veil that should be prodded and pierced until it gives way. On their previous outing, for example, they fleshed out a dystopian AI universe that had a part dog, part human, part robot figure as its protagonist. For their latest release, /Y\,LCY tells a story in two parts. Part one puts breaks and rave stabs underneath saccharine vocal harmonies, intended as a sonic expression of the idea that ignorance is bliss—that there's a safety that comes with not questioning your reality. The fractured and more unearthly second half reveals the inner turmoil that comes with interrogating these social binaries.
LCY whips up percussive storms on tracks like "Cherubim," only to descend upon them as a guardian angel of sorts. Their pitched-up vocals reverberate like transmissions from beyond the veil, while smoothing the corners of some otherwise blade-sharp percussive elements. The half-whispered vocals layered over the falsetto are heavenly enough to have your speakers emitting a divine light. "0NLY 0NE" has similarly celestial flourishes, and is one of the EP's more danceable tracks. LCY themselves described it as "a song to shake your bum to non-abrasively in the club, or at home in your own little box." Glossy stabs and an infectious bounce decorate a lovestruck moment of clarity, while the refrain—"Only one, only one"—shimmers its way into a sonic hall of mirrors.
"Whatitcouldbe" begins a stark change in the EP's tone, revealing what looms outside the bubble of safety: doomy basslines and steely stabs that could soundtrack a fighting game. LCY's previously comforting vocal chops sound like cries for help as they stutter in and out of the mix, embroiled in a maze of propulsive breaks. The walls of reality and safety continue to dissolve until they no longer can on the formless closer "Sound," revisiting a motif from the opener and giving way to an ocean of gentle noise awash with luminous strings, almost as if to say true tranquility can only arise from voyaging through turmoil.
Even when more traditional elements of dance music are employed on /Y\, there are pervading undertones of something otherworldly lurking nearby. Each groan or whirring sounds like something eerily organic and extra-dimensional, vibrating within bands of light that the five senses cannot perceive. LCY's use of formlessness and foreboding sounds to depict what lies beyond social binaries isn't a warning to stay away from these realms of thought, it's a comment on how sedative nostalgia and the status quo can be. Their work voyages beyond these arbitrary lines, both sonically and metaphysically, with spellbinding results.
Tracklist01. SAFE
02. CHERUBIM
03. 0NLY 0NE
04. WHATITCOULDB
05. SACRED
06. SOUND