PSTMRD’s Lanzarote unfolds as a carefully paced exploration of space, texture, and restrained movement, positioning itself at the intersection of ambient, drone, experimental electronic music, and IDM. It is an album that resists immediacy, opting instead for gradual immersion, where details surface slowly and meanings remain slightly out of reach. From the opening moments, the record suggests a listening experience shaped more by atmosphere and continuity than by traditional song structures, inviting attention rather than demanding it.
The album takes its name and much of its conceptual weight from the volcanic landscape of the Spanish island of Lanzarote, and that influence is perceptible not as a literal translation but as a sensory echo. Across seven tracks, PSTMRD constructs sound environments that feel eroded, stratified, and in constant, almost imperceptible transformation. Rhythmic elements, when present, rarely dominate the frame. Instead, they function as subtle undercurrents—pulses that suggest motion without locking the listener into a fixed tempo. This approach aligns the album with classic IDM sensibilities, where rhythm becomes texture and structure dissolves into flow.
“Fullmoon,” the first single and one of the album’s central pieces, serves as a clear introduction to this sonic language. Its rhythmic architecture recalls early IDM experiments, with patterns that feel calculated yet slightly unstable, while glitch-inflected micro-events flicker across the stereo field. High-frequency details are placed with precision, evoking minimalist digital practices associated with artists like Ryoji Ikeda, though without the clinical detachment often linked to that aesthetic. Beneath these elements lies a warmer layer of drifting synths, subtly referencing the analog atmospheres of 1980s electronic music and lending the track a sense of suspended nostalgia.
As the album progresses, tracks such as “Volcano” and “Peaks” deepen the focus on density and restraint. Low-end drones expand gradually, creating a physical sense of pressure, while modular synth textures evolve in slow, uneven cycles. There is a tactile quality to the sound design: oscillations feel shaped rather than programmed, and imperfections are allowed to breathe. The rhythm, when it emerges, often appears fragmented or implied, suggesting geological processes rather than human movement.
“Dune,” featuring vocals by Francesca Bisacchi, introduces a rare human presence into the album’s largely instrumental landscape. The voice is treated as another layer of texture rather than a narrative focal point, woven into the surrounding electronics with a sense of distance and fragility. Its inclusion subtly shifts the emotional register of the record, adding a fleeting intimacy without disrupting the album’s overall coherence.
The closing title track, “Lanzarote,” extends over twelve minutes and functions as the album’s emotional and structural anchor. Here, PSTMRD allows ideas to unfold at their own pace, building an expansive sound field where synth layers drift, collide, and recede. The track’s length is justified by its internal movement: small changes accumulate, and the listener becomes aware of progression only in retrospect. It is less a climax than a gradual dissolution, reinforcing the album’s commitment to immersion over resolution.
Produced using a diverse array of instruments—ranging from Ableton Push 3 to modular and experimental hardware—the album reflects PSTMRD’s ongoing engagement with evolving technologies and sound-shaping tools. The mixing and mastering choices support this vision, preserving dynamic range and textural nuance rather than smoothing the material into uniformity.
With Lanzarote, PSTMRD delivers a release of notable depth and clarity, one that consolidates his artistic identity while remaining open-ended in interpretation. It is a work that rewards attentive listening and repeated engagement, and its presence within the contemporary experimental electronic landscape feels both grounded and quietly forward-looking.