Laki Mera – Turn All Memory to White Noise

Laki Mera’s second album (third if you count 2008’s Clutter, which the band apparently doesn’t for whatever reason) emerges in the wake of two significant changes: drummer Tim Harbinson’s decision to quit the band early in the writing process, followed by the dissolution of a nine-year relationship between core members Andrea Gobbi and Laura Donnelly.

Both schisms are felt in the resulting work; the former in the prevalence of processed beats, the latter in Donnelly’s lyrics, which by her own admission are punctuated with oblique references to the split, but neither’s mark is negative, with the band’s pristine aesthetic of electronic lullabies and nocturnal sophisti-pop benefitting, if anything, form a bit of added frisson. The album’s length is a hindrance, however, with a scattering of repetition and the occasional listless stretch. Nonetheless, tracks like Come Alone offer sufficient riches to forgive it its excesses and focus instead on its clarity and poise.