Lapalux

Essex-based producer Stuart Howard crafts abstract electronic music under the Lapalux moniker, an abbreviation of “Lap of Luxury.” After inking a deal with Brainfeeder, the imprint operated by Flying Lotus, Howard delivered early label offerings typified by the 2013 album Nostalchic, whose shifting, amorphous textures and stuttering, complex beats drew equally from IDM and ambient music as from left-field hip-hop and contemporary R&B. Where those releases sought to conjure the threshold between sleep and wakefulness, later, more experimental projects such as 2017’s Ruinism turned toward darker terrain, probing the boundary separating life from death.

Howard’s recording career began with limited-run cassettes, first 2008’s Forest and then the 2011 expressive ambient set Many Faces Out of Focus. The latter caught the attention of Flying Lotus, who signed Lapalux to Brainfeeder Records and released the 2012 EPs Some Other Time and When You’re Gone. Nostalchic arrived the following year, after which a handful of standalone tracks surfaced. The second album proper, 2015’s Lustmore, featured vocal contributions from Andreya Triana and Szjerdene.

Eschewing much of the R&B and hip-hop palette of prior material, Howard’s third album, 2017’s Ruinism, emerged as a more deconstructive work originating from a score he composed for a performance-art piece. The EPs The End of Industry and ABOVE_BETWEEN_BELOW appeared before the fourth full-length, 2019’s Amnioverse, which incorporated sounds generated on his modular synth rig and explored the fluid cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The six-track EP Esrevoinma followed in 2020, containing three new compositions alongside three reworked versions of Amnioverse material.