LUCIANBLOMKAMP – Sick of What I Don't Understand (Part 2)

Melbourne electronic producer LUCIANBLOMKAMP follows up 2017’s Part 1 with a second four-track exploration of Sick of What I Don’t Understand. And despite the inherent ostentation in chopping up (and releasing) an album in three sections – that timeless three-act structure in music form – this record actually seems to, mostly, benefit from such portioned consideration.

Just as heat, pressure and time produce the most reflective gemstones, Blomkamp has been labouring over these tracks to give himself and listeners the space to ruminate on a progression of feeling and genre. Part 1 travelled through ambient, industrial, breakbeat, trip-hop and garage, as the Australian looked inward to begin unpacking a complex knot of creative uncertainty. From always thinking he knew what he was, musically speaking, Blomkamp is now confronting – on his third album – the realisation that there’s still so much more to say.

'I’ve got what I want but / I want what they’ve got,' he sings on Part 2’s opener Endless, the frustrations around ambition and incompleteness hammered home at first by a galloping breakbeat and looping piano, before switching gears to a heavier house beat for a closing half-minute salvo. It’s a heart-rate-raising lead single ­– and thus a shame there’s a good 80 seconds of ‘ambient’ feedback squeal at the end of the second track I Lose Myself, completely puncturing any atmosphere generated by the LP’s half-way point.

This is a minor fault in an otherwise captivating collection of tunes, and a marked uptick in focus from his earlier, hazier work. Another standout is closer Doing This For You, where fellow Melbournite Eliott sings of the futile self-evisceration of unrequited love: 'Killed myself to be better / What’s the point now you’re with her?'

The fact this is only the second part of a larger project both inspires confidence – that yet more great music is in the post – and invites doubt, as there’s every chance Blomkamp might have an internal ‘second album syndrome’ in the, er, third part of his third album? It’s not easy to sustain such a diversity of style across a dozen or so tracks, and deliberately spotlighting a third of them at a time raises the stakes much higher than in a conventional album release.

Listen to: Endless, Doing This For You