N1L Wrong Headspace EP

Lee Gamble’s UIQ label enters orbit with N1L’s hazardous maiden voyage of strobing electronics and agitated techno-house. Born Martins Rokis, N1L arrives at his first vinyl release via ten years of outlier electronic pursuits including a split cassette with N.M.O.’s Rubén Patiño beside numerous live actions, usually in the context of conceptual art installations, generative systems, and multi-channel A/V performance.

With ‘Wrong Headspace’ however, he has coined the N1L moniker to open a less oblique, more direct connection with the ‘floor, representing a headspace where he can pursue experimental club music and physical sensation thru the prisms of sound design and soundsystem pressure in a manner that clearly dovetails with Gamble’s own aesthetic perceptions.

A-side: ‘Iguana Love Bite’ twysts 140bpm grime-techno with chromatic chords in splintering yet deliquescent dance formations, somehow keeping a robust keel amidst the machine-gunning chaos, whereas ‘Lonely Is The New Black’ sounds like ‘95 jungle extruded thru a mental wormhole.

B-side: ‘Stuck In A Cube’ tacks toward alien tribal house with lush effect, cycling thru multiple time signature changes and ambient dimensions to a heady techno rush, where ‘Wrong Headspace’ comes down with the crankiest, de-glazed electronics forged into what sounds like a L.I.E.S. record from the year 2020.
It’s a superb start for the label with some surprises in store.