Helm, the London-based experimentalist Luke Younger, returns to PAN with 'Olympic Mess', an album shaped by destructive practice, competing desires, and troubled optimism. Unlike 2014’s dense and distressed 'The Hollow Organ', this record reflects Younger's engagement with loop-based industrial music, dub techno, and balearic disco. These hypnotic influences create ten evocative soundscapes that unfold over an hour, offering a contrast to the personal chaos that inspired them. Younger describes the album as exploring “a perverse desire to pull the rug from under yourself", balancing artistic ambition with the turbulence of transient lifestyles, excess, and emotional upheaval.
Crafted with processed samples, found sound, and electroacoustics, 'Olympic Mess' mirrors inner conflict through tracks like “I Exist In A Fog” and “Outerzone 2015,” where visceral noise dissolves into ambient layers. Meanwhile, the crescendos of “The Evening In Reverse” and “Fluid Cloak” remain tense and unrelenting. The title track and “Don’t Lick The Jacket” weave mineral, multilayered abstractions around a brittle pulse. Recorded in London, New York, and Berlin following an extensive tour—including 20 dates supporting Iceage—the album was produced by Sean Ragon, Younger, and John Hannon. Mastered by Rashad Becker and featuring artwork by Bill Kouligas with photography by Kim Thue, 'Olympic Mess' is a bold, immersive statement from Helm.
