Lane 8’s Dance Revival

To survey an artist’s previous catalog and personal projects is to witness the evolution of not just their music, but who they are. The inherent intimacy of music and what it reveals about the artist is sacred. It’s something that Lane 8 has been acutely aware of with each album he has released — and it’s all come to a head with Reviver.

In a statement posted to his Twitter, he shared, “While making Reviver, one of my primary goals was to reinvent myself as a producer. I’ve always felt this way while working on albums — a nagging desire to break new ground and avoid repeating myself …” 

Lane 8’s previous albums have all walked the line of head-occupying ambiance, more melodic and fulfilling, like the sense of drinking in the natural beauty and landscape of the present moment. It’s a feeling that the electronic producer has taken further with his tours and own label, judiciously called This Never Happened. The very essence of its name and inception magnifies the concept of setting down the phones and living in the moment of the music. These present experiences that capture the changes of human beings are packaged into the 56 minutes of Reviver. 

The album’s first single, released at the end of last year and eponymously titled “Reviver,” pulls from the same kind of atmosphere found in Lane 8’s previous albums while being markedly distinct with higher tempos and synthy textures to illustrate his sonic growth. “Sonically, Reviver is my most dancefloor focused album yet,” he shared in the same statement on Twitter.

Still, his familiar lulls and refreshing tunes that revel in the calmer points are ever-present in songs like “Watermelon Wormhole,” “Trampoline Counting Stars” and others. Even in finding change as a producer, Lane 8 brought back old friends and collaborators like Channy Leaneagh of POLIÇA, Arctic Lake and the duo Solomon Grey, the latter of whom have been an integral part of Lane 8’s sound since his debut album. 

Reviver is, in all aspects, an album driven by the human experience. On “Red Light,” Emmit Fenn croons, “You got a hold on me / Through the dark days.” The vulnerability exposed through the lyrics is further emphasized by the song’s minimal backdrop. But in other tracks like “Survive,” the music emphatically lives in harmony with the words, revealing heart without sacrificing sound to convey it. As a producer, it’s the sound itself that seemingly discloses more about Lane 8, and even without lyrics across roughly half the album, the deep scores of vibrant melodies convey it all — the changes of life and the intimacies of it are all adorned in Reviver.