- When Lady Starlight told Ryan Keeling that she likes her techno fast, she worried that this put her at odds with the current status quo. In the eight months since that interview, things appear to have changed. Several defining currents in 2017—the rise of electro, the bleed of hardcore into techno, and the increasingly adventurous selections of mainstage DJs like Nina Kraviz—conspired to make dance floors pacier places than they've been in a while. Starlight's second EP—mean BPM circa 138—slots into this context without offering any surprises. Her production method, linked to her better-known live set, favours simple arrangements. (She told Keeling that her mixer limited her to three channels per track.) Which One Of Us Is Me?, for Len Faki's Figure, is even simpler than last year's Untitled EP for Stroboscopic Artefacts, vacuuming out those tracks' reverbed spaces for a set of no-frills tools for our speedy new reality.
"You," with its EBM-shaded arp, offers a smidgen of breathing space at the opening, but after that Starlight's ideas come stacked remorselessly end-to-end. "Me"'s slamming kick and angry synths hint at the Birmingham sound of her sometime collaborator Surgeon. "Them" tilts towards Robert Hood with its hypnotic chord stabs, which periodically blur and dimensionalise as if we're switching between 2 and 3D renderings. That and some hi-hat layering are the track's only variation. The same goes for "Us", which is the same track with the furniture dragged around. The chords drop a tone, the kick drum bulks up and Starlight squeezes a drop more euphoria out of her frazzled high-velocity grooves.
TracklistA1 You
A2 Me
B1 Them
B2 Us