You’re in a dark room, bodies pushed up against each other. Pulses rise and the music hits hard. You’re a bit off-kilter from all the sweat and adrenaline racing through your veins and on your skin. This is the world LB aka LABAT enters into with Memphis LK and amne on Fixated, his new single on Because Music marking a fresh direction for the DJ and producer: dingy, yet pop-inflected and layered. Above all it’s collaborative and fun.
Club-ready pop girl vocals are care of Memphis LK, from Australia, whose stems lived on LB’s laptop until this “heater of a track” as she calls it, was born. The two collaborators were thrown together in Melbourne at Sub Club going b2b with some friends after Pitch music festival was cancelled due to extreme weather. Later, Memphis LK pinged some vocal stems over to LB, on the complete other side of the world to his native France where the track developed.
LB invited in amne to contribute his brutal sonic point of view that is cavernous and bleak. Fixated was formulated together at Artistic Palace in Paris at a free session; their track was built around the vocals in just one day. It reeks of the urgency and impulsivity associated with the producers’ work.
Reassuringly harsh drums put us in the techno territory with their 4x4 insistence. It’s the type of beat that will make you go the whole night, that urges you to put your bodily impulse first, movement first and to finally switch off those thoughts of work — if just for the weekend. We hear Memphis LK protest, “been working all day it’s getting insane” flanked by synths that sound like a huge metal sheet wobbling. As synths crash through in the best way the standout lyric is gasped and processed, “Like that, thinking of your clothes on my bedroom floor”. Over and over this chant epitomises the theme of the title, fixation. Fixated is deeply flirty, like many other classic dance floor bangers. With its euphoric sonics that echo to disorientating effect, it’s a pleasurable release. The driving rhythm underlines an intense sensual experience until an angelic outro washes it into bliss.