L.I.E.S

Long Island Electrical Systems ( L.I.E.S ) have been causing a storm of late. The NY label headed by Ron Morelli are on a winning streak that looks in no danger of ending. Perhaps responsible in part for the current vogue for raw as fuck ( ghetto) house music, L.I.E.S are as interested in freaking people out, as with making posteriors shake.

The label features a host of previously unknown talents and a clear, if eclectic, style that is as much in debted to punk as it is to dance culture. It's this uncompromising stance which seems to be the only thing knitting such a diverse array of artists together; from the art school experiments of Bookworms or Torn Hawk to the unrelenting techno of Vapauteen or Delroy Edwards. You are as likely to hear modular synth workouts as brutally functional, murky floor music.

Despite the label's deep talent pool, the most important asset in L.I.E.S's arsenal is arguably Ron Morelli's phone book. The guy's obviously got tentacles far into various NY cultural pies, and to unite all these rough diamonds into a coherent whole is surely no mean feat.

Morelli recently claimed that, at the moment, he is selling everything he produces. The first pressings fly out the door as anyone trying to buy For Club Use Only first time round would surely testify. The desire for L.I.E.S vinyl reflects sales of the black stuff as a whole for 2012 which were up 16 percent. This also illustrates an appreciation among the public for genuinely underground 'outsider' dance music. No 'click in the box' exactitude here, just raw uncompromising noise.

L.I.E.S have made themselves the underground success story of the last few years. It's hard to believe that such raw and uncompromising music has found wide appeal. To listen to the jams of Delroy Edwards, one of the label's early stars, is to be almost assaulted with the sound of overdriven hardware, and raw ghetto energy.

In addition to this, L.I.E.S specialise in subtlety, too. Their releases often feature a strong sense of narrative and emotion, seen notably with Florian Kupfer's outstanding Lifetrax EP, or in the Tarifa EP, Torn Hawk's serrated masterpiece. Legowelt, one of the only 'big' names to release on the imprint, is another artist renowned for telling a story through sound. And it was perhaps his patronage that brought the label to wider audience initially.

The UK seems to have embraced LIES's output eagerly, and their ruggedly luminous aesthetic seems to have entered the zietgeist, with imprints such as White Materials, and Dixon's Avenue's Basement Jams, cropping up on a similar 'limited edition, hand stamped vinyl' tip. But whilst it's easy to dismiss this crop as 'scene kid stuff', these labels truly do live up to the hype: behind all the tape hiss and analogue adventures, lies (no pun intended), real substance.

In the endless stream of ephemera which constitutes much modern music, it is refreshing to see a label which pays no heed to convention and manages to churn out quality releases at a relentless pace.

Perhaps L.I.E.S will really make New York the capital of the dance scene once again, with Morelli and his all star phonebook commanding the same hushed tones as Rephlex or Holland's Bunker (Morelli cites the latter as a key influence).

I recently read of one L.I.E.S showcase in London where the writer had no clue as to what was played throughout the whole Svengalisghost set, yet the crowd were still absolutely captivated. And it's this sense of mystery (all the harder to maintain in the digital age), which makes L.I.E.S one of the most intruiging labels of recent times.