The Other People Place is allegedly a project by one-half of the Detroit techno/electro duo Drexciya. Which half I cannot say, because Drexciya has been making records for years anonymously. They do not perform out, obviously, and they have never identified themselves on record or in the press. It's long been a source of speculation in the Detroit techno community: Who is Drexciya? Mike Banks from Underground Resistance? An alias for retired auteur Derrick May? Who?

My personal take is, "Who cares?" If those guys want to keep their identities secret, that's fine by me. I don't much need a face to put with instrumental electronic music anyway, and you can count on two hands the number of producers with something interesting to say outside the studio. As far as I'm concerned, Drexciya are really a race of underwater humans descended from the pregnant slaves thrown overboard from slave ships, as their lore suggests.

My lack of knowledge about Drexciya hasn't stopped me from enjoying Harnessed the Storm, their release early this year on Berlin's purist techno label Tresor, and it's not going to affect my enjoyment of this record by The Other People Place. On this evidence, it certainly sounds like The Other People Place comes from the same mind as someone in Drexciya. The beats are similarly rigid, the synth programming is likewise rooted in early electropop, and the track structure walks the line between electro and techno.

Still, the differences between the projects are significant. Lifestyles of the Laptop Café is much more relaxed, with slow-to-mid tempos and a velvety sonic palette. It's almost downtempo meets techno; the beats are leisurely but stiff as the most uptight Kraftwerk, and they never nod in the direction of syncopation. There's a fair amount of weird humor here, too. "Eye Contact" has a recurring sexual grunt serving as a riff and contains a monologue featuring a latte-slurping narrator suffering from "transmitter overload" as he spies a gorgeous babe in the café, all delivered in a tone like Barry White if he suffered from autism. "Running from Love" brilliantly combines a frightfully deep and churning bass pattern, assorted high-end synth squelches, and a pinched, robotic voice saying something about moonlight and love.

But not all the vocal accents here are emotionally constipated or used for humor. The vocals in "You Said You Want Me," though clipped and incomplete, are from the melodramatic Depeche Mode school, and it's chilling how well they compliment the melancholy piano theme that winds through the track. "Let Me Be Me" is straight Detroit techno, with 4/4 beats and cheap high-hat flourishes, but the booming "let me be what I want to be" vocal refrain ratchets up the tension.

This is not a record that stand up and says, "Hey! Look at me!" Much of the charm of Lifestyles of the Laptop Café comes from its subtlety. The beats, sounds and attitudes are muted and expertly designed. Where it came from, we may never know, but whoever put this thing together knows what (s)he is doing.

-Mark Richard-San, June 14th, 2002