Luge - Miarklez
Independent
Released June 5th, 2026
The universe operates on an arithmetic of missing teeth, but Toronto’s Luge has mapped the gaps. Their latest release, make miarklez irlz, arrives in two parts, Make and Irlz, existing simultaneously like parallel mirrors in an elevator shaft, reflecting an ear-to-ear grin.
Make houses the odd numbers while Irlz claims the evens. A splendid alchemy occurs when you get the physical album or digital download. When slotted together; odd, even, odd, even, zipped like the teeth of a brass jacket; they interweave into the complete full-length LP, miarklez. It’s a sonic zipper. Suddenly, what sounded like an erratic twitch on track one becomes the setup for the punchline on track two. The heraldic synth and math-rock slapstick melt into a unified, chaotic compound butter.
Genre is a moving target with Luge; they render the whole concept of classification ridiculous. They craft varied, condensed expressions, taking the good parts of Schoenberg, but eschewing the potentially incomprehensible spirit. With a leap in contrast to nearly every other bar, and tonally within, they’ve distilled their decade-long kaleidoscope of styles down to a potent identity that they’ve somehow managed to deftly evolve.
With transjective artwork by Robert Voyvodic, this album marries post-punk geometry, art-rock theater, and avant-funk bliss with unmatched intensity. Judging by the average speed at which one could write a riff, this album must have taken 100 years. For fans of this style of music, it’s the good stuff, it’s what we come for. For others, there’s always a groovy breakdown or dance-laden spark around the immediate corner. Let the acrobatic riffage burn in slowly through time.
Sounding something like a cross between An Albatross and 13 Year Cicada, the members of Luge each bring a unique presence. Tobias Hart and Cameron Fraser are shape-shifters, never stepping on each others’ toes, with angular fretwork and frenetic bass lines that push and shove from industrial to organic. Kaiva Gotham’s vocals sit somewhere between exuberance and dead-pan, playing with melody until she gets bored. Her synth adds the exact right color, which is, occasionally, clamorously dissonant. On his recording debut with the group, Luca Caruso-Moro’s drumming completes the whole, accompanying them down their pixilated path.
From the honey-sweet dance breaks to the sharp, erratic lunges, to the left-hand turns into rhythmically precarious traffic, miarklez tricks you into becoming an accomplice to the assembly line, both before and after listening, and oh, ain’t it fun to hear those puzzle pieces snap into place.
- Matt Carr
