Helm and Croatian Amor are two artists currently unfurling the heady tonic of today’s techno-cultural rush. In vastly different registers, each artist moves between the micro gestures of intimacy to the macro consequences of political participation. The results turn what is lucid on what is ludic. As regular visitors to Japan over recent years, this tour marks the first time in Australia for both artists.

From his base in London, Helm (Luke Younger) has come to the fore as a crucial voice in experimental music today. With a palette that draws from electronic music in its broadest sense, Helm’s work is marked by the thrilling unknowns of exploratory sound practices, and loaded with a tearaway’s attitude. It’s euphoric, narrative-driven music, but it has its despairing qualities. Helm operates the label ALTER, though much of his work has appeared on the highly revered PAN. This includes 2015′s acclaimed album Olympic Mess, a crowded work of influences set in congested dub.

From Copenhagen, Croatian Amor (Loke Rahbek) operates the label posh isolation, a place of incubation for many artists from across Scandinavian experimental music, including many of his own collaborators. Having recently released Love Means Taking Action, the project’s strongest work to date, in addition to his pivotal performance at Berlin Atonal 2016, Croatian Amor deals with a mixture of fiction and reality, often using real events and places as a platform for a largely fictional play. Locating the critical, razor edge of ambient music, he directs detachment towards universal abstract ends. Voices shudder, and pristine synthesis carries the project along as a kind of alien pop that only just reveals its human hand.

Impreza Assembly, BIG LOVE and Liquid Architecture present Helm & Croatian Amor in Japan & Australia, February 2017.