R-010, VENERANDI — Phenomena LP

R-010 & Venerandi – Phenomena LP, released on Lapsus Records as LPS46, is a nine-track 12-inch vinyl album that documents one of the most compelling experimental collaborations to emerge from Spain’s contemporary electronic scene. Built by Barcelona-based producer Lucas Rojo, aka R-010, and Madrid-born multidisciplinary artist and vocalist Giulia Venerandi, Phenomena exists somewhere between electronic composition, vocal experimentation, trip-hop, bass music, post-club and experimental electronics. Rather than fitting comfortably inside any single genre, the album is defined by an ongoing dialogue between the human voice, electronic processing, percussion, guitar and machine-generated sound. The project first emerged as a live collaboration and was presented at Sónar 2025 as an experimental work exploring the relationship between organic performance and digital technology. R-010 and Venerandi used the IRCAM RAVE neural network as part of their sonic process, investigating how artificial intelligence and human vocal performance could interact as compositional materials. Sónar described Phenomena as a series of sonic experiments confronting the organic with the digital, with the resulting music moving between ambient compositions, noise, post-club and power electronics. That experimental foundation is crucial to understanding the album. Phenomena is not an electronic record with vocals placed on top of instrumental tracks. Voice, synthesis, percussion and acoustic instrumentation are treated as interconnected sound sources. The vocal performance can become texture, rhythm or atmosphere, while electronic sounds behave less like a fixed backing track and more like an environment capable of responding to the voice. R-010, whose real name is Lucas Rojo Fernández-Shaw, was born and raised in Madrid and is now based in Barcelona. His work has moved across techno, dub, house, IDM, ambient and bass-oriented forms, with recent productions extending into breakcore, halftime and leftfield electronic music. His own Bandcamp describes the R-010 project as one defined by constant evolution and experimentation, while Resident Advisor identifies his live work as moving between techno, dub and house. Venerandi brings an entirely different but complementary musical language. Giulia Venerandi is a multidisciplinary artist and vocalist whose earlier solo work already explored the relationship between voice, acoustic instruments, synthesizers, field recordings and experimental electronic production. Her 2021 album Songs and Demos described the voice almost as an independent physical presence, surrounded by obscure synthesizer sounds, irregular rhythms, echoes and dub-oriented textures. Her later work has continued to question the separation between acoustic and electronic sound. Phenomena turns that shared interest into a collaborative language. The album opens with “Tantalize”, establishing the record's central tension between voice and electronic space. Rather than presenting a conventional vocal arrangement, the track treats the human voice as an element within the overall sound field. Electronic textures and rhythm provide a shifting framework around it, creating an atmosphere that feels closer to an evolving sound installation than to a traditional song structure. “Lick Minds” develops that approach further, placing greater emphasis on rhythmic movement and electronic transformation. The track illustrates the album's ability to move between abstract sound design and recognisable groove without becoming committed to either extreme. Its rhythmic components provide enough structure to maintain forward motion, while the surrounding textures remain fluid and unpredictable. “Eutonia” introduces another side of the project, balancing atmosphere with a stronger sense of musical continuity. Across Phenomena, R-010's production frequently provides the structural foundation while Venerandi's voice supplies a human and organic counterpoint. But the boundary between these functions is deliberately unstable. Vocal material can become part of the texture, while electronic sounds can take on an almost physical or vocal quality. “Ôba, Ôba” continues the album's exploration of rhythm and vocal expression, reinforcing the record's connection to post-club and bass-oriented experimentation. The track does not depend on a conventional four-to-the-floor structure. Instead, its rhythmic identity is created through shifting percussion, low-end movement and layers of processed sound. This allows the music to remain physically engaging without reducing the composition to straightforward dancefloor functionality. “Her Simmering” occupies a more suspended space. The album's dynamic range becomes particularly important here: dense rhythmic sections are repeatedly contrasted with moments in which the pulse recedes and atmosphere takes over. That movement between tension and stillness is one of Phenomena's defining characteristics. The record does not treat silence or reduced rhythmic density as empty space; these moments become structural elements in their own right. “La Notte” deepens the album's nocturnal quality, bringing together electronic atmosphere and expressive vocal presence. The track demonstrates how Venerandi's performance can function without being presented as conventional lead vocals. Her voice becomes embedded into the sonic architecture, allowing the listener to perceive it simultaneously as language, gesture and texture. “Passion Within” continues this process of transformation, with the distinction between acoustic and electronic material becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. The album also features contributions from Matteo Caro on guitar and percussion, Pablo Gorostiaga on guitar and Alessio Rodolico on percussion. Their instruments are integrated into the same production environment rather than treated as conventional guest performances, reinforcing Phenomena's central idea of dissolving the boundary between composition, improvisation and electronic manipulation. “Raising Ritual” is particularly representative of the album's experimental philosophy. Rhythm, voice and electronically manipulated material coexist without settling into a fixed hierarchy. The track can be approached as ambient music, experimental bass, leftfield electronics or post-club, but none of those labels completely describes what is happening. Instead, the music continuously shifts between states. The closing track, “Lost with your Love”, completes that transformation. By this point, the contrast between the two original artistic approaches has become increasingly blurred. R-010's electronic production and Venerandi's voice no longer appear as separate layers belonging to different creators; they function as components of the same sonic organism. This is arguably the most important achievement of Phenomena: the collaboration eventually becomes its own musical identity. The album's relationship with artificial intelligence is also more sophisticated than simply using AI as an aesthetic novelty. The RAVE neural network became part of the project's creative methodology, enabling the artists to investigate what happens when a human voice is processed through a machine-learning system and returned to the compositional environment in altered form. The resulting music asks questions about authorship, transformation and the boundary between performance and technology without turning the record into a demonstration of software. Phenomena also has a strong connection to Barcelona's experimental electronic culture. Its debut at Sónar 2025 placed the project within a festival programme that deliberately brought together electronic music, technological research, audiovisual experimentation and new forms of artistic practice. The project was subsequently presented live in Madrid, where it was described as an emotionally powerful performance capable of moving between contemplative soundscapes and more physical electronic territory. For DJs and selectors, LPS46 is not a conventional collection of club tools. Its value lies instead in its ability to introduce unfamiliar textures and structural changes into a set. The record can work in experimental techno, leftfield bass, ambient, IDM and post-club contexts, particularly during transitional sections where conventional genre boundaries become less important. For home listeners and collectors, the 12-inch format provides a physical document of a project that began as a live experiment and developed into a fully realised album. R-010 & Venerandi – Phenomena LP is ultimately a record about transformation: voice into texture, instruments into electronic material, rhythm into atmosphere and human performance into something partially reshaped by machine intelligence. Across “Tantalize”, “Lick Minds”, “Eutonia”, “Ôba, Ôba”, “Her Simmering”, “La Notte”, “Passion Within”, “Raising Ritual” and “Lost with your Love”, the album refuses to settle into a single genre or production method. LPS46 captures a collaboration in which the distinction between human and machine, acoustic and electronic, composition and improvisation becomes progressively less relevant — leaving behind a strange, immersive and distinctly contemporary electronic work.