- The 200th release on L.I.E.S. gets down to what it's all about: raw, jacking house music.
- In the first three years of the 2010s, Ron Morelli led something of a dance music revolution with his L.I.E.S. label. A torrent of highly lauded, often lo-fi releases flooded the internet (and dance floors worldwide), introducing a generation of outlier producers like Terekke, Torn Hawk, Xosar, Delroy Edwards, Florian Kupfer, Greg Beato and Svenghalisghost to the electronic music underground. They mixed catchy samples, crunchy drums and punk aesthetics with house and techno to explosive effect. The music that came out on the imprint around that time was raw, alluring and often emotional. Landmark compilations like American Noise or Music For Shut-Ins encapsulated the mercurial ascent of a scene that reframed vintage East Coast house and Italo disco sounds through a scuzzy native New Yorker lens, all ingeniously masterminded by Morelli.
While Morelli has released a few albums already, Heart Stopper is his first full-length to come through his own label, and also represents a remarkable milestone: the 200th entry in the L.I.E.S. catalogue. Recorded between 2019 and 2022, Heart Stopper channels the spirit of classic '80s house music: jacking basslines, big synths, tight percussion lines and the occasional vocal—and not much else. Grizzly drums set the stage on "Tangled Trap Of Love" as a sultry voice whispers, "The passion never ends," bringing to mind the iconic "Ron Hardy Remix" of Marcus Mixx's classic "The Spell." Morelli is speaking straight from the heart here, crafting a tribute to what undergirds everything for him: classic American house music.
"House Music Revenge" is all vintage-sounding drum machines, with dry claps, hi-hats and whooshing synths passing through a few layers of side chain compression to create a slow, minimalistic groove. "Subway Shootout" is a rowdier outing, with clanging percussion laden with echo effects and arpeggiated vocal loops that jangle like some of Herbie Hancock's early electronic work. The rambunctious title track is the record's brightest moment, featuring a big bass synth melody and celestial voices in chorus.
The vocals get darker, and the melodies hit harder, as the record unwinds. "Ron's Torture" features eerie synths and ominous verses. Lyrics like, "Never know what's up or down / Blinded by the lights / Confusion, pain and misery / Suffering is rife," are juxtaposed with bongos and synth workouts on "Time Stands Still," where euphoric piano keys emerge and drive the track forward to suspenseful effect. Similar images of misery, revenge, torture, shootouts, survival, love and death are spelled out across the track titles, helping paint a picture of Morelli's world and the darker undertones of his formative Chicago and New York influences.
Looking back on those early L.I.E.S. compilations, they're almost comparable to Warp Record's seminal Artificial Intelligence series, in the sense that this was a frontier of an exciting new wave of music from a certain corner of the underground at a very fertile time. Early entries in the L.I.E.S. catalogue feel as fresh today as they did in 2011. While Morelli has released all kinds of music over the years, he's largely stuck to off-kilter techno, ambient or noisy excursions. With Heart Stopper he's on a mission to deliver the message of house music to the masses with this rare dispatch. He should do it more often.
Tracklist01. House Music Revenge
02. Heart Stopper
03. Subway Shootout
04. Ron's Torture (LP Version)
05. Tangled Trap of Love
06. Gun Smoke (LP Version)
07. Rule Is To Survive
08. Tricks of the Trade (Dub)
09. Another Old Beat Track
10. Time Stands Still
11. Natural Deaths