Exposure Kills - No Sanctuary
Written by Vero Kitsuné
Being one of the most prolific producers of the underground dark electronic and alternative scene, Electronic Artist and Hacker Tess LaCoell has always carried a broad range of genres in her pocket — often blending them, breaking them and defying them. Her style has never been easy to categorize, but we all know the coolest things always defy genre expectations. But with her new project Exposure Kills, she’s clearly intent on pushing even further beyond familiar boundaries. Known for her work across underground electronic circles and tech culture alike with remixes for both indie and big stars alike, LaCoell’s debut EP under Exposure Kills No Sanctuary reframes club music as something more conceptual and confrontational. Across five tracks, she channels themes of surveillance, control, and digital autonomy into a sound that fuses synth pop immediacy with prog-leaning structures and industrial grit. Drawing on her background in hacker culture and open-source communities, the record feels less like a stylistic pivot and more like a calculated system breach — one that turns technical frameworks and real-world cyber logic into something visceral, rhythmic, and unexpectedly cinematic.
I couldn’t help but feel like I’m roaming around neon-lit circuit boards in some super cute Y2K cyberpunk outfits while listening to the EP from start to finish.
Opening track “No Sanctuary (feat. Rebecca Bammert” kicks things off with a slick blend of hyperpop gloss and proggy electropop twists, with vocoder-heavy harmonies giving it that cool, robotic edge. It’s a fun, high-energy bop on the surface, but the lyrics dive into digital warfare and system sabotage, making it feel like a playful yet slightly menacing hacker anthem.
“Detect, Deny” keeps the momentum going, but leans into a rougher, more experimental vocal style — glitched-out, heavily vocoded, and even a bit dissonant in ways that give it a colder, dystopian edge. The electronicore-flavored breakdown hits hard, and paired with the back-and-forth perspective in the lyrics, it feels like a tense cyber battle unfolding in real time.
Then the EP rolls into two remixes of “No Sanctuary” — the “Lunar Paths Remix” by Violet Wanda and Lunar Paths, and “Disaster by Design” by Dharmata 101. Each one, in its own way, drops you straight into a gritty, Matrix-style underground club — follow the white rabbit, right?
The EP closes with “The Signal,” easily my favorite track, which pushes things into a wild hybrid of hyperpop and Drum-and-Bass, topped off with some genuinely fun, powerful and brilliantly-executed distorted metal screams.
All in all, No Sanctuary feels like a bold and fully realized introduction to Exposure Kills — equal parts concept-driven and just straight-up fun to listen to. It balances glossy hooks with darker, tech-laced themes in a way that never feels forced, and if this is just the starting point, there’s a lot to be excited about moving forward.
Follow Exposure Kills here: https://exposurekills.bandcamp.com/
