Format: Cassette
Label: OverMyBody
Release: 2022
Two years after his last release, Taipei producer Lujiachi returns in 2022 with Mantis, a new EP focused on heavy, percussion-driven tracks that roll out at around the 100 BPM mark. Each cut is tied together by snarling, fuzzed-out bass and metallic drum sounds, sounding like hard drum blaring out of a busted Marshall stack. In the brutal opener “Link,” sludge metal bass tones mingle with a reoccurring sample of labored breathing. Kick and snare are buffeted by all manner of glass-breaking and metal-smashing percussive noise, which threaten to tear the track apart yet somehow end up just making the groove even stronger. The title track begins with a crackle of distortion, announcing the arrival of a rumbling bassline that moves with a brash swagger echoing Lujiachi’s club edits of old school Taiwanese pop. As an eerily insectoid plucked synth figure stalks the high end, the kick locks into a 4/4 stomp to draw us to a lento violento-like conclusion.