As one half of electronic duo We Roll Like Madmen, Chris Tollack helped produce kinetic club music that was equally heady and dance-worthy. But even before the pair disbanded in 2018, Tollack was experimenting with dance music and seeking new avenues of electronic expression as part of his solo project Antiquarian. Rather than pursuing the effusive textures and propulsive tones of WRLM’s pop-leaning soundcapes, he sought out sounds that were far more eccentric and unorthodox, crafting compositions that were idiosyncratic on the one hand, but still keenly dedicated to the love of movement and the dance floor.

cover of Antiquarian's Lake City EP

On Antiquarian’s second EP Lake City, Tollack merges pulsing house beats and techno with a litany of found sounds, field recordings, and what he calls the “digital deritus of modern life.” The record isn’t about subverting listener’s notion of electronic music so much as it is about tethering it to the personal and everyday. To achieve that synthesis, the EP deftly assimilates four years worth of recordings Tollack maintained on his phone’s voice memo app. Amidst the record’s alluring jumble of club bangers and cerebral grooves, these fragments pop up like so many ghosts, recalibrating the music’s on-the-go euphoria through the prism of memory and place.

If you’re searching for highlights, you’ll likely find them in the reverberating cosmic swirl of lead single “Blisters” or in the juddering tumble of collapsing synths and skittering percussion that line “Pit in His Stomach.” But, cliché as it may sound, Lake City isn’t built to be ingested in singular doses. Each of the EP’s five tracks serves as both terminal and runway, immersing the listener in a gleaming edifice of mesmeric light and throbbing sound before sending them off on the next flight. As Tollack states in the bio accompanying the record, Lake City is “a destination that exists only between destinations.” The point is to keep moving, and never stop admiring the view.

Lake City is out today. You may stream in its entirety below.

More Info
Bandcamp: antiquarian.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @Antiquarianmusic
SoundCloud: @antiquarianmusic
Twitter: @christollack