28th May 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
It may only be three minutes and twenty seconds long, but this latest offering from Lumirex – an Italian musician based in Munich – has a lot happening. It’s dark and stark, with low, stealthy industrial bass tones strolling and bubbling. So far, so much standard dark electronica, the kind of stuff that’s been circulating since the late 80s when Wax Trax! created the template for all things of an electronic industrial persuasion. But with ‘Hurts’, Lumirex take that template and expand on it in the most unexpected of ways.
It begins with stealth, before building… and then something happens. That something is a magnificent vocal which soars and glides – not quite operatic, but every inch classical and the perfect contrast. Compressed and breathy, it suddenly soars skywards in a departure from this domain, while the beats flurry faster, evermore glitchy, evermore tense.
There’s a break where things clamour down to a hushed moment of breathing – a tense gasping, where the word ‘kill’ is repeated, and it feels dangerous, before, out of nowhere, a banshee scream erupts and the beats flitter in again and you find yourself in a total spin.
Sure, it incorporates myriad things you’ve heard before, so much so that it’s not only familiar, but borders on the cliché – but these are just the elements. The way Lumirex draws them together is something else, and ‘Hurts’ is nothing short of mind-blowing. It has to be heard to be believed.
AA
Aural Aggravation 