Laces returns to NLV Records with a fully-fleshed reimagining of his debut EP on the label, Field Fallacy XVI. Titled Field Fallacy Haptics, this new hard-dance, reworked version comes as a direct response to the Australian Tour Laces’ embarked on earlier in 2021.
“Those shows were so brilliant especially considering we managed to fit them in amongst the COVID situation this year,” Laces explained. “Playing out the EP tracks was fun on tour, but pure club music is just so good, I felt like the project needed a harder variant.” He continued: “On top of the tour shows, I have had a bunch of opportunities to play shows in VR Chat with parties such as Loner Online, Shelter, Ghost Club and more, and so the crowd interaction and tastemakers in that scene have heavily influenced this remix EP.”
Field Fallacy Haptics features the six tracks from the original EP, entirely reworked. Naturally, the running order of things has changed a little bit in the process too. This time, the EP kicks off with ‘Drop My Cell’, featuring Darcy Baylis, and two new collaborators – Lovefear and SUS1ER. The whole collaboration came to fruition in Boorloo (Perth), after Laces played a show at Pneumatic. The ‘Devil May Cry In The Club Remix’ of the track leans into more of a melodic style, opting to push the track further into anthemic territory. Topped off with old-school MIDI Japanese-RPG style pianos, this rework sounds as though it’s been ripped straight from your favourite 90’s anime, but with a hefty dose of thoughtful, 21st-century production work.
The thermostat gets turned up a few notches on ‘Prosperity (Vapour World Cup Edit)’ featuring fellow NLV Records signee, Ninajirachi. “A lot of the party sets we played earlier this year ended with a healthy dose of happy hardcore and hardstyle and I felt like I needed a corny hardcore tune to round out the EP,” said Laces of the track. He’s achieved the perfect balance of duality on this rework, opting for a clean, shiny aesthetic in the builds, and smashing it all to pieces with a tempered dose of happy hardcore. WATCH THE VISUALISER HERE.
Ninajirachi returns on the ‘Papaya Clouds’ version of ‘3K’, alongside Ilai Ashdot. Harkening back to the days of the Nintendo DS, Laces and Nina dive deep into nostalgia on this one, aiming to inject the wondrous aesthetic of the platform into a bonafide club tool. Laces has been opening his sets with an orchestral rework of ‘3K’, so to then turn that into a club track, just goes to show how many iterations this track has seen. The second collaboration between the pair on this remix EP just goes to show how strong the working relationship between Laces and Ninajirachi runs.
Field Fallacy Haptics rounds out with three entirely solo reworks from Laces. The first, being ‘The Ridge (Trace Memory Reconstruct)’, which injects a speedy dose of footwork into the mix, taking the single to a monstrous place. Paying homage to artists like Machinedrum, DJ Paypal, RP Boo and Slick Shoota, who he regularly plays out in sets, Laces is taking that element of his repertoire and inserting it cleanly into his catalogue. ‘Sunvocus’ remains one of the most central tracks to Laces identity as a producer, and his ‘(Deep Heaven Lite)’ only pushes the envelope further, and this time into psytrance territory. Though he embodies a more structured genre style in this one, he’s instead opted to flip the lightness of the original on its head and draw on darker sounds in this reimagination. Ravey stabs are aplenty in this rework, but the most captivating aspect of the rework is the way he’s kept the syncopated 808 so central to the track’s rhythm, despite it being entirely reworked.
And finally, the EP closes with ‘Eucalyptus (Eidolith Tides)’. Drawing on his time spent in the VR world, DJing and participating in community-based club nights, this sombre closer draws on trance to tie it all together. He’s picked apart the melodic traits of ‘Eucalyptus’ to piece together this solid outro, leaving us to ponder on the just-heard rich tapestry of hard-dance styles.
For a few years now, Laces has been quietly working his way across Australia’s underground as a producer, DJ and curator. On the production front, he’s forged a sound for himself that entirely negates genre boundaries and in the process, challenges the conventions of those sounds. After the successful launch of his Field Fallacy XVI EP earlier in 2021, Laces embarked on a nationwide tour headlining at club events such as Perth’s Pneumatic and Brisbane’s NATSTM alongside fellow producer/DJ and good pal Kenta204. Touring solidified Laces‘ place as a hefty force in the Australian dance scene. This year, Laces‘ track ‘The Ridge’ was featured prominently in the iPhone 13 Pro advertising campaign which saw the track featured on in-store billboards, and the tech company’s social media. As a curator, he’s played a part in establishing a growing community, through being a founding member of the virtual reality club night Loner Online that has seen the likes of Quarta 330, Raito, T5umut5umu, Masayoshi Iimori and Six Impala perform.
Field Fallacy Haptics by Laces is out now via NLV Records buy/stream it here.
Artist: Laces
Title: Field Fallacy Haptics
TRACKLIST
1. Laces, Darcy Baylis, Lovefear & SUS1ER – Drop My Cell (Devil May Cry In The Club Remix)
2. Laces & Ninajirachi – Prosperity (Vapour World Cup Edit)
3. Laces, Ilai Ashdot & Ninajirachi – 3K (✰Papaya Clouds✰)
4. Laces – Sunvocus (Deep Heaven Lite)
5. Laces – The Ridge (Trace Memory Reconstruct)
6. Laces – Eucalyptus (Eidolith Tides)
Produced by: Laces
Mixed by: Laces
Mastered by: Joker
Release Date: 09/12/2021
Label: NLV Records
Catalogue Number: NLVR0081