Fact Mix: Lauren Duffus

Lauren Duffus finds the feeling in loose summer club sounds, giddy edits and some of her own stunning unreleased productions.

If music isn’t emotional, Lauren Duffus isn’t interested. “Unless music makes me feel sad or uncomfortable, I get bored,” she admitted to Carhartt WIP. This approach informs everything from her major influences, the slurred opioid raps and Book Of Revelations production of witch house pioneers Salem and the transcendent, golden era Chicago drill instrumentals of Chief Keef, to her initial introduction into production. During the opening salvo of the 2020 lockdowns, Duffus picked up a copy of Logic Pro and began experimenting. The results were remarkable, three tracks that covered everything from cybernetic choral arrangements (‘Stir Fry’), shoegaze dancehall variations (‘Braeburn’) and ‘Soho Road (Crying Son),’ a jaw-dropping ambient drum sequence composed of kosmische synthesis and chopped samples of wracking sobs.

She credits the making the making of SULK as aiding her in grieving the loss of her father in 2018, a process of mourning she really only felt like she began during months locked down during the outbreak of COVID-19. “Making music has really helped,” she explains, “the process of playing chords that trigger me and make me cry, because it leads me to having a moment of reflection.” Indeed, channeling difficult emotions into sound is a theme that abides in her work. ‘Habits,’ her contribution to AD93’s dubplate series, is described as “a song about regret, frustration and trying to explode gracefully,” a technique she elaborated on with The Ransom Note. “Exploding gracefully just means pouring that energy outwards as opposed to bottling it up and destroying myself,” she observes, providing stark insight into how keenly felt her approach to sound continues to be.

Her Fact mix is no different, a mind-expanding concoction of loose summer club sounds, bounding between hard drum, baile funk and UK bass, spiked with a generous measure of her own productions, giddy trap, drill and r&b edits, shot through with eerie electronics reminiscent of early Arca, Mica Levi and Vangelis, as well as some stunning unreleased material. It’s one of these untitled tracks, in which naked vocals pierce a sombre sci-fi synth lead drifting on barely-there percussion, perfectly pitched between melancholy and lovesickness, that excites us the most. If music doesn’t make us feel like this, we’re not interested.

You can find Lauren Duffus on Instagram, SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

Tracklist:

Lauren Duffus – ‘Untitled’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Untitled’
Usher – ‘Climax (Lauren Duffus Remix)’
Ivy – ‘Wore my Babes in the tub’
Young Thug – ‘Audemar (User2222 Remix)’
Waka Flocka Flame – ‘No Hands (Lauren Duffus Handel Flip)’
Fearz – ‘Elastica’
Kaval – ‘Lil Trap Ting’
Stromae – ‘Alors On Danse (Blastah Edit)’
BJF – ‘WGACA’
DJ SMOKE – ‘UH WHAT’
Bianca Oblivion – ‘Sinais’
O.M.A.A.R – ‘King Lemur’
Apple x L-Vis 1990 x MC Kauzinho – ‘Deixa Ela Siegalizer (Foreigner Edit)’
Magma – ‘Cash From Hash’
Dre Ngozi – ‘Gyal Dem Dem’
Ku Bo – ‘Lem Lem’ [Feat. Sara] (Rolv.K Remix)
Trio Ternura – ‘A Gira’ (Kaval Edit)
Russ X Tion Wayne – ‘Keisha Becky Remix (Noumeno’s Ultimate Reptilian Mutant Trap Spliff)’
Kodak Black – ‘Roll in Peace’ x Lauren Duffus – ‘Untitled’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Permanence’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Untitled’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Habits’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Elegance Is Learned’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Love Love Love’
ng2 – ‘Imaginary Visage’
Lauren Duffus – ‘Untitled’