- Ice-cold 808s from electro's new prince.
- Lou Karsh is on a mission. As Reptant, the Australian producer has been building an elaborate cosmology of a future that never arrived, one release at a time. It's a world where McLarens drive on neon skyways across city skylines, with shrines to Drexciya on the highway and Egyptian Lover is serving his 10th term as president. Across this soundscape, Karsh unfurls 808s, ice-chilled synths and slithering basslines (and has even laid out the mythology of an embattled metropolis named X'trapolis). And Ballet Robotique, his latest release on Kalahari Oyster Cult, is his coldest and coolest to date.
The EP comprises three old-school electro workouts, each built on syncopated percussion patterns and sparse, sub-zero instrumentation. But Karsh is less interested in simply recreating electro's past than in imagining where it might head next. "Future Proof" contorts a gurgling acid line into nightmare hallucinations that wind out of the minor chord pads in the background. This is the sort of raw, haunted electro you might find in Helena Hauff's bag. "To Be Continued" also moves in a minor key, but its squishy bassline and spidery synths feel a shade lighter: the perfect soundtrack for sentient robots bumping and grinding after clocking off.
"Ballet Robotique" stands out as the best track on the record, gesturing towards the other end of the emotional spectrum with a throwback to the early days of electro when trunk-rattling 808s might get mixed into a New Beat tune. Karsh's vocoded voice whispers about machines dancing over whipping synth lines and fried-out pads. It's camp, and a little goofy, but it never tips into nostalgic pastiche. Every synth note and 808 lands with crisp, deliberate precision, like a laserdisc restored in 8K.
There's a perennial dance-music dilemma: how to balance the formulaic with the forward-looking. Call it the Cybotron Paradox, if you like. Call it the Cybotron Paradox, if you like. Electro, alongside techno and jungle, was meant to be the sound of the future, but as these genres enter their fourth decade, it's harder to pretend they still carry that charge. Reptant sidesteps the issue. What Karsh does so well is lean into electro's kitschy futurism without worrying about whether any of it proves prophetic. These are tunes that would sound just as funky rinsed in 1984 as they will in 2084.