Live sets in the world of electronic music can all too often mean someone staring at a laptop for an hour, but Ralph Lawson was keen to get around this crutch when forming his own live house and techno group. After recruiting fellow 2020 artists Dubble D and Silver City to aid him on his journey, the quartet started jamming out tracks for a bunch of singles, culminating in their debut album No Order. Previously, the band had been drafting in guest vocalists for all of their vocal tracks, and originally the group planned to do the same for Falling. However, after recording that particular version of the album, the 2020 lads decided to scrap the entire project and work from scratch, getting bassist Fernando Pulichino to step into the role of singer/songwriter for most of the record. Even though Falling has more of a focus on actual songs and vocals, the album is still very much a dance record, with club-friendly tech-house cuts like "Bisco" and "Psycho" fitting alongside dubbier cuts such as "Dark Matter" and "Broken." Simply put, 2020Soundsystem are one of the best live bands in electronic music. It’s a general feeling that, for the most part, electronic dance music is missing a really great live act. There’s been loads of great recorded music, but most concerts are set up to fail in the era of laptop presentation. 2020Soundsystem has never had this problem simply for the fact that live gigs came first, even before there were any tracks. It was an idea built around Danny ‘Dubble D’ Ward and Argentinean duo Fernando Pulichino and Julian Sanza jamming live over DJ Ralph Lawson’s dub track records. This might be an unusual way to start a band, but it was the blueprint for developing their unique style. Their acclaimed first album No Order featured guest vocalists and a live set recorded at Sonar festival. The task this time around has been to develop vocals in-house and most importantly to capture the energy and flow of their live performance. Enter 2020Soundsystem’s much anticipated sophomore release Falling. Since there are many acts following in 2020 Soundsystem’s trail, and using a similar format, it was important to try to create something new again for the second album. An entire first version was completed using guest vocalists, but in the end was totally scrapped. This nearly led to the band losing faith, but as always perseverance prevailed and a second version was produced that saw Fernando stepping into the role of singer/songwriter on many tracks. Falling manages to balance songs with dance tracks and still retain the overall flow and feel of a live 2020Soundsystem set, from the lush vocal arrangements of “Every Time,” “Sliding Away” and the title track, festival jam session favorites “Bisco” and “Psycho” to more dubby workouts like “Dark Matter” and “Broken.” It also opens up and ventures away from dance music with tracks like “Closure” and “Way Of Life.: The Soundsystem has succeeded in becoming much more then a sum of its parts, with influences from all four band members clearly identifiable, but combining to create a signature sound.