24.09.21

In the little more than a year since Lyra Pramuk released her debut album Fountain, the LP has come to feel remarkably prescient; an odyssey of the limitless potential of the human voice functioning as a treatise on technology, identity and spirituality. It’s also just great electronic music, a facet which makes it ripe for reinterpretation.

True to its title, her new project Delta is a convergence of the sonic world of Fountain, retreading similar streams while meandering its way into wholly unexpected places. Equal parts remix album, futurist symphony, and next-level club mix, it retains all the enchantment of its predecessor while introducing a key new element: other voices. And a plethora of voices at that: the cast ranges from Colin Self to Hudson Mohawke to Caterina Barbieri, who each add significant compositional effects to the tone of Pramuk’s work. The swooning, two-part contribution from Eris Drew, for example, envelops us in a single, meditative vocal loop before plunging us into a sample-driven house extravaganza, while Valgeir Sigurðsson Offering squarely places Pramuk in the lineage of her inspirational forebear Björk. And without wanting to “spoil” the journey of the project, let’s just say you should listen to Tygapaw’s rework of New Moon in a space where you have plenty of room to flail around.

In theory, working with a dozen different artists may have threatened to swallow what made Fountain feel so special. But with Pramuk’s curatorial and collaborative skills, Delta instead weaves a rich expansion of its predecessor that both honours and transcends the source material.

Jake Indiana