GENRE: Electronic

LABEL: Planet Mu

REVIEWED: 22nd September, 2025

Rating:  7.5 / 10.

Body Lapse is a vivid, challenging collaboration between producer Rian Treanor and vocalist / performance artist Cara Tolmie, released on Planet Mu.  What makes the work especially compelling is how it insists on the physicality of sound — breath, body, voice — even while being deeply embedded in electronic architecture and digital signal processing. 

Tolmie’s vocal technique, especially her “internal singing” (inhalations, exhalations, fragmented syllables, whispered and shouted moments), alternates between uncanny fragility and visceral force.  Treanor’s production supports this with fractured rhythm, glitchy textures, sudden dynamic shifts, and an uneasy tension between pulse and stillness. Tracks like As The Unified Field Bursts provide opening jolts of energy, while Sleep Guessings offers moments of space and looming quiet that heighten the emotional contrast. 

Critics note that Body Lapse captures something of the modern condition: information overload, bodily / digital disjunction, exhaustion, and the strange refuge (or rupture) found in intensity.  The album doesn’t make concessions to ease; its structures often feel wild, sometimes disorienting, with tracks that stretch and mutate over time rather than follow conventional form. 

Nevertheless, there is reward in the risk. The record’s power lies in its confrontation — the way voice and machine alternately collide, converse, and sometimes blur. It’s not background music; it demands focus, even bravery. For listeners drawn to experimental or boundary-pushing electronics, it’s a richly textured, emotionally slippery journey. But for others, it may feel abrasive or uneven at points.