Lazarus Damian

Though Lazarus’s grounding in house and techno is apparent throughout, Smoke The Monster Out is really a song-based affair, full of unusual acoustic instrumentation and delicately wrought arrangements, which Lazarus wrote with collaborator Arthur Jeffes - son of the Penguin Café Orchestra’s Simon Jeffes. The Rebels boss has taken a long view of his life as a music-lover, drawing on older influences as diverse as Photek, Jeff Buckley and Bjork, taking their essence and suffusing it with the twisted dancefloor alchemy we associate with his DJ sets. Perhaps most significantly, not to mention surprisingly, Lazarus himself sings on several of the album’s tracks, investing his songs with his own distinct personality and quiet expressiveness. This is Damian Lazarus as you’ve never heard him before.