This fourth collaboration between Lois Powell and Night Wolf sees the two artists pushing their already hard-to-pin-down sound, but hey, isn’t that the whole point? As a famous quote goes, “If you ain’t living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” “The Laws of Life” feels like the perfect sonic response to such a sentiment. Boundaries are there to be pushed at. Genre demarcations exist only to be hopped. Laws are there to be broken.
This time out, we find the duo still powered by a delicate trip-hop groove, cloaked in a dream-pop sheen, playing with spacious sonics and, as ever, employing Powell’s vocals, which drift between the intimate and the operatic to spellbinding effect. And yet, this is also all about breaking new sonic ground.
What at first seems simple and merely ambient becomes even richer and more rewarding with every spin. Familiarize yourself with the music, and new sensations appear: nursery-rhyme chimes mix with arabesque beauty, clinical beats groove with drifting sonics, understated sound blends with artistic elegance, and chilled, late-night dance vibes waltz through more neo-classical grandeur.
And all that in a song that often seems to be doing so very little. But that is the art of it: what is at once accessible and beguilingly infectious reveals itself to be a much more complex beast, and what seems to employ so many sonic ideas manages to make them dance deftly in unison.
Gorgeous stuff!
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