[Smallville Records]

As the owner and sole driving force behind the label Something, the enigmatic Stephan Laubner manages to freely indulge his prolific nature without sacrificing quality. In 2008 alone he notched up six well rated releases, three of which could be considered albums, only one arriving on another label (“Lost In Brown Eyes” for his friends at Perlon), and he’s already released a new 2×12″ in 2009. Laubner’s efforts also seem immune to easy characterizations. They stretch from massaged field-recordings to wistful deep house, caustic techno to more chipper tech-house treats, and that’s ignoring the many loops etched into most STL releases. What’s surprising, then, about STL’s debut for Smallville Records is not that it turns the page in the self reliant producer’s catalog, but rather its potential to loom large over what came before it.

Silent State finds Laubner introducing dub techno’s vast palette of reverbs and delay to his repertoire and varies greatly from track to track. The most fascinating is the title cut, a sub-aquatic meander whose elegant craftsmanship unfolds across 12 minutes without feeling even a second too long. Ambling forward as an enthusiastic guide, the tuneful bass line steers listeners towards several synth lines mingling at different depths, ripples following wherever they go. Each melody flows at its own pace yet feels interconnected to its companions, even the sharpest, most fleeting progression and sustained snare hits. Laubner’s command of synthesizers is so great he’s captured an entire eco-system in flux in the form of a functional techno track. To call it breath-taking is almost not enough.

You’d be forgiven if it takes a few spins before feeling ready to flip the record, but side B is equally rewarding. “Six In A Row” is a substantially grittier affair that channels its energy into the grumbling central riff. Squirming along a bed of tape hiss and street noise, reverb magnifies its jagged edges until they gnash together, their resonance creating eye-opening new pitches. And while “Six In A Row” could easily find its way into many techno sets, it’s not too far a stretch to include the rarefied lo-fi aesthetics of black metal among its extended family. While more conventional than its siblings, “From A Distance” is impressive in its own right. As the insouciant yin to “Six In A Row”‘s overcast yang, the tune’s placid underpinnings are as celebrated as the dubbed out washes bouncing gamely off the walls. Hushed Rhodes tip-toes between two chords, holding together the unpredictable reverberations like a serene glue. Its lucid beauty rivals some Maurizio tracks, so don’t be surprised when “From A Distance,” like the rest of the EP, is stuck in DJs’ rotations. If STL hasn’t yet been canonized on the strength of his bountiful back catalog, Silent State seems poised to be his ticket to the front of the line.