Lazer Sword

Lazer Sword emerged as a production duo based in San Francisco, fusing hip-hop, electro, and dubstep into an offbeat strain of dance music equally suited to solitary listening or club environments. Antaeus Roy, performing as Lando Kal, and Bryant Rutledge, operating as Low Limit, assembled the project and launched it through unpredictable, wide-ranging DJ performances paired with the online circulation of their densely sampled, rhythm-focused instrumentals. Internet exposure connected them to a loose network of beatmakers specializing in “slaptop beats,” “blap,” and “turbo crunk,” among them Montreal’s Megasoid crew. In 2008 Megasoid included the pair on two installments of the Speed Knots mixtape series. The following year Innovative Leisure issued the Lazer Sword recording “Gucci Sweatshirt” as a 12-inch single. The same imprint put out the duo’s “Shot in the Nite” single in 2010, backing it with the Nintendo-loving track “Koopa Boss Mode,” and subsequently released their debut album. When the more refined follow-up Memory appeared on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown label in 2012, Roy had relocated to Berlin while Rutledge had settled in Los Angeles.