The first Voices From the Lake album has taken on a mythical status, like a Selected Ambient Works 85-92 for the Berghain generation. Donato Dozzy and Neel, already masters of trippy, ambient-leaning techno (once called “headfuck techno”) on their own records, hit on some kind of flow state when they made their collaborative debut LP. This was a cerebral style of techno that sounded like it grew out of the forest floor, where rustling leaves and padding paws took the place of kick drums, and chords moved like swaying branches and trees. Since that album, as good a full-length as the genre has birthed, everything attached to the Voices From the Lake name—EPs, a live album, the occasional remix, celebrated live sets—has strengthened their reputation. With II, the duo finally sits down to create a follow-up that breathes the same rarefied air as its predecessor. It doesn’t completely match up, but it comes damn close.
From the moment the low end rumbles to life on opener “Eos,” we’re back in glorious terra cognita. The duo’s bass tone alone is a thing of beauty, like a lightweight alloy that’s been hollowed out: You can feel the sub in your chest, but it’s never heavy, and the higher frequencies drive the mood and melody as much as the synth leads do. Bass is the duo’s secret weapon, the sound that makes their music both propulsive and curiously still, laying down an earthy foundation that feels more organic than synthetic.
Though there’s a naturalistic bent to the sounds on II—the percussion knocks like mischievous woodpeckers on the spacey, tranced-out “Montenero,” and there’s a suggestion of birdsong in “Mono No Koto”—this is hardly tree-hugging new-age music. The new record is more rooted in deep, dark, dubby dance music, including a bassline on “Montero” that hits like the foreboding strains of amapiano currently played out by DJs like Mark Ernestus. Or the rippling darkwave synths on “Blue Noa,” which has a muscular runner’s build, hard and lithe: Think Boy Harsher covering Nitzer Ebb for a late-’90s car commercial. With II, the musicians find new things to do with their chiffon basslines and pitter-patter drums, gently expanding the Voices From the Lake remit without venturing too far out of their enchanted forest.
