Lamebot Works Through His Emotions on Missed Calls

Some people pay for therapy to deal with their issues. For Miami-raised electronic music producer Lamebot, there's nothing more therapeutic than making music. For his new five-song EP Missed Calls, out on August 24, the creative process of healing and self-exploration for the musician, getting to work on it right after the release of the 2022 EP TBH...

"Once that project was done, I kept working on songs. I wanted to not just acknowledge patterns I'd made in relationships; I also wanted to break my musical cycles. I wanted to stop over-relying on sounds I was comfortable with," he tells New Times. A longtime fan of Miami bass, he wanted to dip his toes into other music genres like drum 'n' bass and UK garage, sounds he has long enjoyed but never felt quite comfortable making.

Missed Calls begins the palate cleanser "Tell Me." "I wanted people to know from the first riff this was going to be a different kind of project for me," Lamebot explains. He was inspired to create the track after attending a set by English experimental artist Iglooghost in Orlando. "After seeing him, I wanted to make something with no drums in it," he adds. "I tried some string instrumentals. I threw in lots of audio candy, but there's no major drop. I wanted to convey emotions to get you ready for the rest of the tracks."
Next is "With You," which got logistically complicated for Lamebot. The distributor flagged a vocal sample used in the song over copyright issues, which required Lamebot to prove he got the sample legally. After wading through more than 100 vocals samples to find the right fit for this song, the legal hurdle was a frustrating experience for the producer. "An R&B voice was what I always imagined," he explains. "I had to cut it up and rearrange it so it sounded like what I wanted to say. It took listening to 100, maybe 200 samples before I said this was it."

At the EPs midway point is "I Want You to Stay," which he says is a reassuring song for him to perform since it always gets a positive reaction from audiences. "I had the idea for the hook early on," Lamebot says. "The main keyboard sample filled out the rest of the track. It deals with the gray space of wanting to fight for someone but also knowing the relationship is detrimental. That realization is why the song has a switch at the end, and it gets hectic."  "Complicated" was an attempt for Lamebot to get out of the comfort of his Jersey Club sound. "I wanted to add UK garage. That's a sound that's bleeding into pop music now," he says. It reflects his current experimentation with a more global approach to his production, finding inspiration in genres like salsa and Afrobeat. Playing around with other styles of music fit in with the track's lyrical theme of "working your way out [of a relationship] and realizing someone is not the right fit."

Finally, the EP closes out with "4:19 am," named after when he first hit save on the rough draft for this project. "I'm a night owl. That's when we let our guard down," he explains. "The song looks back at things fondly, so there's not a weird resentment. It's late-night thoughts about how you both enjoyed each other's company."

Lamebot is set to celebrate the release of Missed Calls on Saturday, August 26, with a performance at the Citadel, an experience he's anticipating. "It's cathartic to play the songs out. Nothing like seeing people's faces when the bass kicks in. It's like seeing people go free," he adds.

Beyond that, he's planning to collaborate in the studio with his friend and longtime musical ally Otto von Schirach. There's another release Lamebot's planning to drop in the weeks after Missed Calls comes out that will compile live mixes from both his latest record and TBH...

"They're variant versions of songs from the last two albums that, put together, will be one big experience," he says. "It's going to be called Human Error, which I think is a good way of summing up both projects."

Lamebot. 10 p.m. Saturday, August 26, at the Citadel, 8300 NE Second Ave., Miami; 305-908-3849; thecitadelmiami.com. Admission is free.