Lapalux

Stuart Howard is an Essex-based producer who creates abstract electronic music as Lapalux, short for "Lap of Luxury." Brought to the public's attention after signing with Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder imprint, his early works for the label, such as the 2013 full-length Nostalchic, blended shifting, amorphous textures with stuttering, complex beats, equally influenced by IDM and ambient as well as left-field hip-hop and contemporary R&B. While his work from this period was meant to evoke a state between sleep and consciousness, he explored much darker themes with more experimental releases like 2017's Ruinism, which contemplated the area between life and death. Howard started his career releasing short cassettes, with 2008's Forest followed by Many Faces Out of Focus in 2011. The latter was an expressive ambient release that caught the ear of Flying Lotus at Brainfeeder Records, who signed Lapalux to his label and issued two EPs in 2012, Some Other Time and When You're Gone. The full-length Nostalchic followed in 2013, with a few non-album tracks appearing afterwards. Second proper album Lustmore, for which he collaborated with vocalists Andreya Triana and Szjerdene, was released in 2015. Moving away from much of the R&B and hip-hop influences of his previous work, his third album, 2017's Ruinism, was a more deconstructive effort born out of a score Howard wrote for a performance art piece. Two EPs (The End of Industry and ABOVE_BETWEEN_BELOW) appeared in between Ruinism and Lapalux's fourth full-length, Amnioverse (2019). Partially constructed using his modular synth setup, the album was themed around the fluid cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The six-track EP Esrevoinma arrived the following year and featured three brand-new songs as well as three reworked Amnioverse tracks. ~ Jason Lymangrover & Paul Simpson, Rovi