It’s been a long time since I posted something to this blog.  You can attribute that to my growing disinterest in being “on” the computer, the amount of travel that’s plagued my lifestyle the past year, or the fact that my extraordinarily expensive sound card fucked up for two and a half months. So needless to say as my favourite hobby was put on the back burner, this blog suffered the fallout – no new music, no new whiny half-baked reviews.

Then VD dropped a new record (Ripatti “Ripatti01“) so I sorted my shit out, quick snap.

Why? Well here’s the deal, the dealio, the Nancy Dell’Olio (I fucking invented that – just like that too, no fucking planning, no ghost writers nor fuck all).  Wait, hold on, side tracked.  Breathe… So I’m going to continue to talk about some stupid fuckin’ records here that no cunt has heard of before, and continue to drive people away from my already on the fringes blog.  And I’m going to be using tonnes of commas, because I love them – they’re like little fullstops that you can put fucking anywhere you like.

Anyway, right, I’m cool, I’m cool. No, I’m cool.  Ignore that previous paragraph.

It’s been thirteen years since there was a new VD pseudonym – not counting the collaboration, I think Uusitalo is the newest.  So it was with heavy anticipation I awaited his latest incarnation.  To be entirely transparent, I need to preface this review with the admission that I find interest in everything produced by Mr. Delay.  Even the unlistenable early Sistol album (who listens to music anyway?  How horribly passé) or the confused and messy “Love Glove” CD.  I’m also more interested in what’s been invested in the making of the music than the final outcome – the reflection of the musician in the music is much more interesting than all other aspects to me. It’s what elevates music to art, and what differentiates good from bad – even in seemingly superficial electronic music.

Ripatti is both a new label and new “character” in the VD repertoire.  The label is distributed exclusively through the Boomkat.com web shop and will be putting out limited runs (around 500 pre release, I think).  It’s supposedly a snapshot of what is being produced in the studio, and will more than likely house pieces that are not viable as parts of albums or other projects.
Ripatti the artist is a bit more interesting to me.  It’s the first occasion in which Vladislav Delay is using (almost) his real name.  Or at least I think it’s his real name – at this point it’s quite difficult to tell.  Maybe he’s grown to be more comfortable in his own skin, maybe he’s gained the confidence in his productions he no longer needs an alias, or maybe he just made some music and slapped his name on it.  We’ll never know, but I’m guessing VD doesn’t do things without thoroughly considering the implication.  What I can tell you is that this single production released under the Ripatti moniker bears little to no resemblance to any of his previous incarnations, and I have the feeling that it’s the record he’s been desperate to release for some time.

Ripatti “Ripatti01”

Ripatti “Ripatti01” contains two tracks, “#39” and “#24” – seemingly from the Mark Fell school of naming.

The a-side is a stop/start, medium tempo tech house thing.  It’s choppy, glistening and really is the sort of thing I love.  I think it’s aimed at replicating 2-step garage with a contemporary twist, but really it works better as a modern take on late 90’s dutch house music.  It’s a fun track, and possibly the most accessible piece of music I’ve heard Delay produce, but it never crosses the line into frivolous or juvenile.  He knows how to show a great deal of restraint, even when wringing the neck of his new studio.

Finely chopped samples are draped over deep analogue toms and kicks.  It’s a very rhythmic record, very controlled. Gone is a lot of the syncopation and dubby depths associated with his most popular productions, and it’s all been replaced with tireless shifting of samples and insane patterns.  Only once does the twelve minute track break down to expose it’s Vladislav Delay centered core – long attack, reverb laden minor chord progressions.  It’s Delay, but pressed through a mesh screen of contemporary genre traditions. Very cool stuff.

The b-side is very different. It’s a frenzy of fast snappy drums, shuffling rhythms, 80s finger snaps and single note basslines. Its been called drum and bass by a few critics, but that doesn’t sit well with me. Its more chaotic than that (plus if its not an Amen Brother sample, its not drum and bass). This is a record that doesn’t fit with the canon of the rest of his material, gone is the control and self control – but that’s no bad thing.

It’s all glued together with a mulchy, mangled, unintelligible backdrop of noise. Sampled and twisted. I think V has been listening to Underworld’s “Second Toughest In The Infants” – and if he hasn’t, he really should.

It’s a lovely unexpected surprise, and one that makes me very interested in what’s to come next.

You can buy the record right now (if its not sold out) from Boomkat.com, and if you’ve got access to a reasonable turntable, you definitely should check it out. And for god’s sake, don’t leak it on the internet and ruin everyone’s fun.

And I know this aspect doesn’t matter to a lot of people but… The pressing and the mastering of the record are both excellent. Clean and deep, with lots of range and clarity.  I watched a lot of interviews and public talks with the mastering engineer Matt Colton – and he said a lot of stuff I profoundly disagree with.  Lots of examples of boring music and lots of talk about high resolution being smoother and clearer.  Snake oil in my opinion, however I have to admit his work seems spot on.  It’s difficult to master modern dance music, but this is an excellent example of how it should be done.  Well done Matt!

Now about this weird HDD toy you’ve bought, what are your plans with that Mr. Delay?

Luomo “Plus” – gah… Another new Luomo work. It’s not that I don’t like Luomo (in fact I LOVE Luomo), but the more accessible he tries to make his music, the less accessible it actually becomes.  And I don’t mean in the physical purchasing sense, I mean the act of sitting down and consuming the full album becomes more of a challenge to me.  It took me the best part of two years to grasp “Paper Tigers” and I’m still working on “Convivial”, although if you were to ask me right now, I’d confess to considering that the one truly bad album the feature Vladislav Delay’s name.

It’s a difficult endeavour to take feelings inspired by music and paste them on a page like this – and I’m certainly not the best at doing it either. So, let me start by first describing the more tangible qualities of the album – the sound quality. Now, I must attest to being a little bit of an audiophile. Not the snake oil and magic cable kind, but the compression hating, digital processor loathing type. I like my music to breathe, have dynamics.  I like a bit of noise, or the round sound of tubes. I envy, without limits, the Manley processors Vladislav displays in his studio.  I would literally kill for some of that 60’s vintage great he has laying around. I am without reservation, purely in the analogue only camp when it comes to recording (playback is an exception). So, that’s what’s so weird about this album… I’ve never heard a more analogue sounding record in my entire life. Everything has a rubbery bounce, and a smoothness to it. It’s recorded in an immaculate, beautiful, no compromise fashion… But I’m not sure I like it.

Luomo “Plus”

The whole album sounds too detuned, or too ‘warm’ to be a techno / house record.  It sounds like 1972.  It’s difficult to point out exactly what is causing this, but the music lacks definition.  The album sounds like it was mixed for headphones, but exhibits some odd phase problems when listening on cans. It reminds me a little of the Kraftwerk sound, and that’s not a compliment.  For once it sounds as if Vladislav Delay has been influenced by his equipment, rather than making it do his bidding he has stepped back and let it do it’s thing.  There’s much less of a signature to the sound than normal – I would not have recognised this on sound alone as a Luomo disc had the name not been on it, and to me that’s a great shame.

My suspicion is that Vladislav has now become a bit of a gear head, and once what were once just little machines that made noises have now become more than that.  They seem to have become the substance of the material rather then the means of expressing it.  But, hey, I could be wrong.  Anyway, this is all just aesthetics, nothing to lose focus on.

Let me get this out of the way before we discuss the music; this is not micro-house.  “VocalCity” wasn’t micro-house, “The Present Lover” wasn’t micro-house.  Luomo was never micro-house.  Anyone who contests otherwise is nothing less than an absolute fucking moron.  If you were expecting 808 drums with a 500hz cut, go look else where.  In fact, go and fuck off and die in your skinny jeans wearing, trendy little clubbing sub-genre.

Right from the start, the musical writing displays the characteristics of a Luomo work.  The opening track, “Twist”, is a subdued, long drawn piece.  Slowly building, and combining to become almost fully formed.  However it’s quite evident that it was written to be an album opener, and wouldn’t really stand on it’s own as a single piece.  But Luomo makes albums, not tracks – so it’s perhaps not the sharp criticism you may have assumed, but at over eight minutes long it does become a little tedious after the first listen.

Track two, “Good Stuff” is one of the tracks that was available for preview on SoundCloud (YUK!), so has lost a little bit of it’s fresh feel.  In saying that, the track has a lot to offer.

Another epically long piece, nine minutes ten seconds to be exact, it feels very “Detroit 1984”.  We’re treated to resonant synthesis and slippery sounding hooks, setting the motif of the album quite aptly.  Very subdued chord progression never really find the space to flourish, and the bassline only pins things down on breaks.  It sounds to me like a cross between Donna Summers and Soft Cell, but then again, I’m a little bit crazy.

I don’t know if this is a conscious decision or not, but the third track on every Luomo disc since “The Present Lover” seems to express the most swagger and confidence on every disc.  “Plus” is no exception.  “How You Look” is a plodding, stabbing synth effort where the kick drum takes centre place.  Layered vocals are draped over the top of things, making it sound a little deeper than it actually is.  Percussion builds to excellent effect, and really grooves and swings better than any Luomo track ever has.  There is also an interesting use of the bass synth arpeggiator which is allowed at one point to run on a quarter bar too far, going into the wrong key, and forcefully grabbing the attention of the listener before the next track begins.  A fantastic idea, if a little awkward in it’s execution.
“Plus” takes until track four to push the vocals to the front.

 “Make My Day” is the first, and one of the few tracks on the entire album to be what I’d consider vocally driven.  And even then, at the bridge Luomo sees fitto suppress them in acres of delay, where usually they would enter a crescendo of vocal cuts.  “Make My Day” is best described as a classically produced house track, with some uniquely written solo parts.  Weird but cool has long been the Luomo trade mark, but some times I wonder if he errs too much towards the former.  Probably the most self-indulgent track on the disc, reinforced by the point that it just seems to fade into nothingness, proceeded by some random keys…  Again though, it’s closer to cool than contrived.

“Happy Strong” is a brilliant, shining example of why I love Luomo so much.  No one else in the entire world can drop gems like this, and to do so with such nonchalance brings a smile to my face every time.  I didn’t like this when I first heard it, I dismissed it as an off cut from the latest Sistol effort, but there was something to it.  Something about “Happy Strong” has engrained itself in my psyche.

In essence, it’s quite a sparse track, there’s only main elements to it – C minor pad, patterned drums, vocal hook, bassline.  That’s it really – and none of which show much, if any, variation throughout the whole eight minutes of the track.  Each element just happens to be utterly perfect,  and everything is perfectly executed.  The whole record is perfect.  Everything bounces and plods, rhythms have an energy and a spirit the flows out of the speakers.  You become lost in that glistening pad, as the drums bump you along.  You can genuinely feel the magic.  This is the track that makes the whole album worth while – this is a track that could make any album worth while.  This is not only one of Luomo’s best tracks, but also one of the best pieces of music ever to be placed on wax and released to the Ether.  Apparently there’s four more tracks after this one – my rewind button seems to think otherwise.

In actual fact, the four proceeding tracks suffer terribly from anonymity.  I don’t remember much about them other than experiencing crushing disappointment and slight boredom, which is a crying shame.  Hazy, distant vocals, reverb laden percussion, nothing distinctive or unique.  I’m sure they will grow on me over time, but whether or not I am willing to ever even listen to them again is a bit of a question…  It’s a shame to end a new album on such a weak note, especially an album I was looking forward to for so long.

At the end of all this, I can’t help wonder if it’s me.  Maybe I’m the problem.  Maybe it’s me that’s change and I’m no longer cool.  I spent this weekend unironically listening the the Labyrinth sound track.  Ten years ago you couldn’t have paid me to listen to that shit, but now it’s all “Dance magic, dance magic, dance…” as I picture 10 grunged-up Kermit the Frogs grooving around.  Getting old is a terrible thing.

“Plus” is still an excellent and notable album, even if only half of it really works right now.  Is that enough to make it a decent buy?  Yeah, without doubt.  I think it’s best viewed as five incredible, and interesting tracks, with the addition of four tracks that may be growers – as it is really too early to rule them out totally (and I’ve yet to be let down by any VD production).  Music isn’t like wine, it doesn’t get better with age – the listener does.  That tracks done’t become better, but maybe my appreciation for them will become more evident as time passes.

Luomo hasn’t lost his magic, it’s just become a little more sporadically placed.