Published by Alessandro Violante on April 14, 2026
After having released a wide range of techno music with his prolific label Blue Hour since late 2013, started shortly after having moved to Berlin, the British producer Luke Standing who, before that experience, already released music as Furesshu and Esoteric also organizing club nights, released his first full length, entitled Selva, on his own label on 10th April on 2xLP.
As the release title Selva (a Spanish and Italian word meaning jungle/forest) suggests, the eight outputs included in this release have a dark and mysterious, almost religious, tribal sound and atmosphere. The album sound is the result of also having been recorded during periods spent in subtropical locations, besides those spent in his studio and, in the artist words, “the LP evokes Amazonian or Mayan jungles, themes of exploration, the mysteries of the natural world, wisdom passed down through generations”, and the idea of recording a full length took shape automatically.
The eight tracks included in Selva sound more like dark electronics tribal snapshots of an introspective journey than like eight techno tracks, and the tracklist sounds perfectly cohesive from start to finish. The opener Arrival, with its syncopated beats and its dark atmospheric sounds, immerse the listeners in a sonic swamp. In the following Hidden Passage, the listener, prisoner of that oppressive environment, tries to escape from it following an obscure path represented by the track title. This movement is evoked by the beat, here closer to techno, enriched by tribal rhythms and by environmental sounds. Crimson Delta maintains those tribal sounds and switches to a proper 4/4 techno beat, evoking the movement done by the imaginary character of this story. The following The Chase is an even harder track, evoking the act of running, seeking a solution to escape from this dark environment. With Lost Beneath the Leaves, we once again feel lost in this dark forest, the syncopated beats and the atmospheric sounds evoking the feeling of being lost. Dreamscape, with its 4/4 techno beats, evokes the dreamlike experience lived by the listener, stil trapped in this forest. Submerged, with its tribal rhythmic elements, suggests once again the feeling of being lost, submerged by the environment. The closing, purely atmospheric song Portal, suggests us that the listener hasn’t necessarily found an exit, but a way to move somewhere else, escaping from that forest in which was transported. It could be its home or maybe another place.
The journey described in Selva could be a metaphor for those daily lives lived by people feeling enslaved into the society in which they live, or as a way to escape from it. It could also be a metaphor of what a record should be able to do on its listeners: offering them the chance to live a different temporary experience freed from the rules governing their daily lives. Although its richness of sounds and atmospheres evoking subtropical geographical regions, Selva definitely sounds as Berlin-made dark electronic music, which you could easily listen there too, letting your imagination free to move wherever it wants.
Selva is a remarkable example of how dark electronic music could sound today. The long sonic research done by the artist through more than a decade has given its desired results.
Label: Blue Hour
Rating: 9