Trawlerboy’s (Lukas Laurent) debut EP Elsewhere is a piercingly intimate portrayal of our innermost desires to escape. Composed of five songs, each distinct in texture and timbre, Elsewhere presents a sonic journeying through otherworldly soundscapes in a quest to reflect the beauty and horror that mark everyday existence. Primarily recorded after a recent move to Seattle, Washington, the EP follows the thematic art of relocation: the sensory experience of being out of place and body.

Walking and exploring Seattle’s coastal waterfront influenced the wandering structure of the songs, as well as the conceptual underpinnings of walking as a method to articulate the spatial depths of our interior, psychic landscapes to meander our way toward self-liberation.Described as “love letters to my twelve or thirteen-year-old self stuck in a trailer park in North Texas,” each song channels themes of dissociation, solitude, and the futility of self-preservation. Finding early resonance in the music of Richard D James, Björk, Harold Budd, David Sylvian, Bill Evans, Ravel, and Yellow Magic Orchestra, Trawlerboy’s sound is a kaleidoscope of references that slip between the percussive, atmospheric, electronic, and orchestral. 

The first track Momento is a warm and inviting melodic piano composition. It is delicate and enchanting, and like all songs on the EP, dreamy with a touch of melancholy. Like quietly drifting asleep, Momento’s conclusion transitions into a sonic wave of harmonic dissonance into the glossy and bubbly Tephra. Inspired by the bright, tropical aesthetics of Frutiger Aero, Tephra’s sonic textures culminate in a dripping, gritty base, sampled drum beats, distorted 909s, and gooey synths reminiscent of Orbital and Squarepusher. The sounds feel alive in a geologic or tectonic way, like the formation of an island following a volcanic explosion. This blissful, retro-futurist dream sequence is “cut” with the third track and emotional climax, Youth.