Bendu is the alias of Ben Vance, originally from the Midwest but now based in Los Angeles. Lautner is an ode to architect John Lautner, responsible for innumerable distinctive buildings in LA, including the space age Chemosphere above Laurel Canyon.

Vance’s love of his fellow Midwestern emigré was forged after a tour of Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein house in LA’s Beverly Crest area ten years ago. His ensuing research into Lautner’s practice, and the architect’s love-hate relationship with the adopted LA home where he forged his success, seems to have deepened his hero worship of a figure who sought to bring beauty to what he felt was the city’s inherent ugliness.

Quite how that all manifests itself in the twelve tracks included here is somewhat beyond me. Then again I’m (coincidentally) on a flight to LA as I write this, it’s 0230 back home, I’m trying to keep myself busy to stay awake, and not a lot makes much sense to me at this hour. Each track is named after a specific Lautner property, and its contents are sharp, many-layered electro tracks blessed by Vance’s astute approach to melody and rhythm.

The whistling, wandering top line of ‘Rainbow House’ is a highlight, laid over a fat bassline and chunky old school preset beats. A tension between linearity and unpredictable (and harmony and discordancy) characterises ‘Bergren’, acting as a metaphor for Vance’s (and Lautner’s) relationship to the city. Elsewhere, ‘Carling’ has a poignant plaintiveness, a squelchy, jazzy motif interfacing with pointillist tuned percussion, steady beats and an effusive, expansive central hook.

‘Lautner’ by Bendu was released April 25 2025 on Shady Ridge Records

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.