Luminance is the second of two EPs released by Oxford producer Give Me Monaco, both of which span the cleft between 2022 and 2023. This most recent EP, as well as its sister release, explore the awesome destructive and reconstructive cycles of the Earth's geothermic disposition. Many dense and lush forests can trace their genesis to the ash and charcoal spread by tremendous combustive cataclysms, mountains rise because they are forced into grandeur by immense pressure from below, and most islands are essentially the dried outflow of volcanic outbursts. To this day, the world manages to make itself over and over like a sculptor who can't quite find their muse in a hunk of clay. Shifts in tectonics combine and fold over one another, like a jigsaw puzzle with fluid edges, tabs and sockets towing and tightening in a generative tug of war and embattled synchronization with the planet's core. While 2022's Inferno depicted the dangers that this perpetual order of metamorphism poses, Luminance examines the resulting convalescence and rejuvenation that comes from these ruptures. Cross-pollinating complementary tactile and bright sonics across both releases, the latter focuses its vitalic ethos on high-energy sequencing and melodic builds, elevating bass lines that extend in waves like open blossoms turning to greet the light of the incoming sun. An electrifying current builds and burgeons through veins of percolating rhythmic elation on "Basalt," before a cool rain-like pattern takes shape on "Caldera," filling the crescent basin of available space with a deluge of aquatic-tinted beats and a thirst-slackening draft of liquid grooves. "Lahar" slides into the vessel of your perception on a flow of rollicking synth churns, ebbing over outcropping beats in a dauntless rush that only gravity could account for, while "Magma" sizzles in slow motion, clicking its heels in a secret code on a hot pan of searingly tranquil beats that pop with drama like burning ore quenched in ice cold water. Give Me Monaco's Luminance isn't just a bright spot in the contemporary dance underground; it's a positively glowing one.
