Liuos - A Retrospective

Dub Techno is a notoriously difficult genre of music in which to differentiate one’s self as a composer. With a fairly narrow definition of what Dub Techno is, it’s difficult to make many alterations to the form without finding yourself outside it. This isn’t a complaint or a criticism of the form, just something I’ve noticed over the last 15 or so years of listening to it. For those already familiar with the genre, you might consider skipping down to the part that focuses on Liuos’s place in this area.

What is Dub Techno?

If you’re not familiar with it, here are a few classic examples of Dub Techno (from here on out “DT”).

1994: Cyrus - “Inversion” (A Basic Channel track from the inventors of DT) https://youtu.be/1_BvEKRzlns

2010: Zzzzra - “Helicologie” Helicologie | Entropy Records

2012: Submersion - “Isolate Obliterate” Isolate Obliterate | Submersion

2013: Ohrwert - “Asphere” Asphere | Entropy Records

2014: Deepchord - “Red Lantern (Parts 1 and 2)” Red Lantern - Parts 1&2 | Deepchord | Astral Industries

Throughout these tracks, you can hear the regular pounding 4/4 kick drum with simple basslines and a minimal layering of elements on top of the drum and bass. There is a heavy focus on stereo panning and echo effects; these are the inherited legacy from Dub, whence the genre gets part of its name.

While the list of elements used is not long, we can still tell by listening to these examples that these artists have succeeded in creating their own voices. While digging through copious amounts of DT over the last decade or so, I have found that there can be a lot of sameness. At a fundamental level it’s easy to understand what needs to go into a DT track to fit in, but few rise above the crowd.

Where does Liuos fit in?

Liuos is the moniker under which Jari Österberg publishes his DT compositions. For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing on the EP releases from various netlabels. There’s something interesting in every track on these EPs, so I’ll have to restrict discussion to a few of my favorite examples in the interest of brevity.

Throughout Liuos’s work, we find most of the usual DT elements: 4/4 beats; heavy basslines; lots of reverb, echo, and panning effects; and a certain minimalism when it comes to the number of elements we hear. His work is on the more melodic end of DT, with many tracks including melodic elements with considerably longer phrasing than we find in most of the rest of the genre.

But from the first moments of “Adhesion”, the first track from Terms (2018), we can tell Liuos will be serving up some unusual sounds and rhythms. It starts with a light breakbeat, which is almost unheard of in DT tracks. That breakbeat continues throughout the track, fitting comfortably behind the rest of the mix, which features a heavy 4/4 beat and thick grindy bassline. In addition, there’s a 8-bar melody part on top; such long phrasing isn’t that common in DT.

“Invariant Mass”, also from Terms, is a masterpiece combining the core formulae of DT while adding track-long development to the mix. The first minute lays down the beat and bassline, along with some beefy midrange synths. The next minute or so fills in several layers of sounds into the hihat loop. We get a beat break and a set of echoey filtered vocal samples. It is here around the three-minute mark that one could make a solid track by continuing to pfutz with knobs on the effects without adding new elements, but this is where Liuos really shines: the track finishes with new elements that incorporate interesting chord changes that are unusual in DT.

Up to this point of the track, the shifting F#/B in the midrange synth has suggested a major chord, but here a three-tone guitar part comes in going from F♯ to A and back to F♯, which is on a minor chord; this makes it sound unsettled. A few bars later, two more notes are added to the guitar line, which still do not settle it. Eventually we get a new heavy synth that resolves this guitar dissonance by tying together the A and B with A/B/E/F♯. This kind of messing around with different chords is unusual in DT; I find it extremely effective, and this makes “Invariant Mass” on of my favorite DT tracks.

“Hadley Cells” from 2019’s Negative Ions is another example of Liuos’s ability to incorporate elements ordinarily not found in DT. Here we find the hold/release pattern from various forms of Trance in use. The first instance arrives at about the one-minute mark, though its full impact isn’t used yet. It’s used with greater strength at the two-minute mark to accentuate the change from a backbeat hihat pattern one with hihats on every upbeat.

At the three-minute mark, we get the hold/release element again, but this time combined with a noise element and a suspension of the beat for the largest impact moment: this is when the guitar part comes in, and we’re now at cruising altitude. Ordinarily we would expect a crash cymbal at the moment of release, but there isn’t one and it works perfectly. Also uncommon in DT is the breakdown section without a beat and quieter atmosphere. We get one here, and it doesn’t disappoint.

From Vastness (2019), comes the amazing track “Vastness”. This time, the really unusual element is a chord change in the main melodic part; most DT doesn’t change chords during tracks. Vastness uses a common DT trick to escape the 4/4 beats by making the bassline heavy enough and gritty enough to sound like it’s part of the kick drum part. After the breakdown, there’s a short segment without that bass, and it reminds us of its contribution when it returns shortly afterward.

From Defining Moments (2020), “Infinitesimal Rectangles” showcases the melodic style he’s developed. For the first 4 minutes or so, we get a slow exploration of a sly 16-beat melody. The snare hits are only on the fourth beat, giving it a very relaxed-sounding vibe. This is another example of a track that could be a fully-formed DT composition without adding any more elements to it, but Liuos adds a higher-pitched chord-changing layer to the top. This fills out the experience more: since the top layer is changing chords while the melody below stays the same there is a different emphasis in many of those lower notes than we heard earlier.

While Liuos has shown a great talent for writing melodic DT, some tracks in the catalogue are more grounded in core DT vibes. For example, “Zeta Potential” from Charged Particles (2020). On this one, we get single-tone synth lines that focus on rhythms and effects rather than melody. This track bumps along for nearly eight minutes, never wearing out its welcome. With only a short break near the end, it’s very minimal, but very interesting.

At the time of writing, the most recent release is the two-track Naming Controversy (2021). “Electromotive Force” starts out by surprising us with what almost sounds like an accordion. After building up the bassline, drums and hihats around the floating accordion, some more chord structures come in from the back. Soon after we get a break, and an extremely loose hihat comes in giving this track a feel like no other in Liuos’s catalogue. It’s a very sharp and clear sound matching the sharpness of the accordion, but contrasting with the muffled synth background.

I don’t know how well-known Liuos in the world of DT, but in my opinion more people need to hear his work. It’s well-produced, well-composed, and very listenable. It also has that rare combination of immediate accessibility and subtlety that leads to long-term listening enjoyment. Liuos has earned a place in my personal list of DT masters along with Basic Channel, cv313, Deepchord, Lamont Kohner, Mon0, Ohrwert, Submerson, and Zzzzra.