New York Musician Les Techno Releases Lockdown-Inspired Post-Punk Single "Flowers For Dystopia" via Solid Bass Records
We're pleased to perhaps re-introduce you to one of I.M.P's favorite artists.
Purveyor of cool, subversive Pop, with one foot planted in a post-apocalyptic David Lynch future, and the other securely in heady post-punk and gothy 80's retro vibrations. Les Techno 's self-produced string of recent singles have all exuded a surrealist attitude and a strange, moody, spacious, danceable signature sound.
His latest single "Flowers For Dystopia" is his reaction to being under lockdown for 3 months, locked in his recording studio. He says "one night, in a dream, I imagined walking out on a stage in some dingy East Village club, with the band playing this riff. I approach the mic and, like a wizard's incantation, call out "Objects!, Objects!". I woke up in the middle of the night, ran down into his studio and started recording it.
Listen on Spotify.
Check out the lyric video on Les's Youtube channel:
Listen to the remix.
More about Les Techno
Like a character out of a dystopian movie script, Les Techno projects an effortless mystique and a slight strangeness. Cooled out emotions and swaths of satire drip from his signature croon and artful lyrics. The rawness of the post-punk movement like the Psychedelic Furs and the Talking Heads combined with the electronica-infused pop popularized by artists like New Order all factor into Les Techno's sound, which would be equally at home on the radio or as vinyl spun at a post-apocalyptic goth club.
Headstuff.org applauds Les Techno's musical style, noting that "the scrappy riffing and Les's softly reverberated, crooning vocals sound like something straight out of a classic movie's montage sequence. His voice carries that confident but quivering quality, traceable to Bowie through Byrne, only a hint huskier. Hook after hook, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics, Les Techno has charm, wit and charisma in the bag." Alternative Nation dubbed him "a mad genius" with "seemingly boundary-less approach to crafting powerful, out of the box anthems."
Les Techno comes from New York City, a rocker that has played guitar and sang in the punk rock hangouts, including in the bands Sim-Stim and Love Posse. Trained as a guitarist, occasionally with the late jazz-man Larry Coryell, Les learned to work with analog synthesizers and analog tape
using razor blades and a grease pencil. While working on his "studio tan," Les created tracks and mixes across a wide variety of genres: classic hip-hop with Run-DMC (Profile) and Mobb Deep (Loud/RCA), reggae dance-hall with Georgie Blacks ("Kickup Unwine", RCA), techno dance with
Stimulator ("Are you a Freak?"/ PowWow), and dance remixes for Red Hot Chili Peppers ("Higher Ground"). He also worked with the late legendary funkmaster Bernie Worrell ("Downtown", Virgin/EMI).
Les Techno's familiarity with producing these different sonic styles is readily heard in Les' music. Cinematic, challenging, and filled with all variation of carefully crafted ear candy, Les Techno's music is the sound of a man truly making the music he wants to make. This project is a new mixture of rock guitar sounds, electronics, hip hop beats, and live bass. And his satirical lyrics delivered with a Morrison flavor.
