Toronto-based producer Loukeman’s winsome dance tracks are an elevated take on the cheeky DJ edits and remixes that litter the annals of his longstanding SoundCloud account. He plucks vocal earworms out of folk, pop, and R&B songs, bending them into familiar yet malformed shapes that titter mysteriously at the margins of his booming house beats. As in the work of Todd Edwards, it’s not so much what Loukeman’s unwitting guest stars say as it is how they say it: the timbre of an errant syllable, the percussive musicality of a phrase repeated until it fractalizes. Since his 2021 debut, Sd-1, he’s earned cosigns from Vegyn and Jacques Greene. His latest album, Sd-2—the second of a planned trilogy—is more of an expansion pack than a sequel, a fresh suite of wistful trinkets that slot seamlessly alongside their predecessors.
Loukeman’s identifiable samples offer an answer key to his inspirations. He regularly pulls from intimate, romantic performances, using their pleading registers to lend even his highest-energy tracks a bittersweet edge. Sd-1’s “Shadowww” is instructive in this regard, flipping the weary strums of Lomelda’s “Hannah Sun” into an easygoing, uptempo groove that belies torrents of feeling. Sd-2 is quick to draw from this same emotional playbook: Album opener “Baby You’re a Star” complements folkish acoustic riffs with the sonorous vocal runs of Mario’s “Let Me Love You,” chopping and stretching his libidinal cries into abstract warbles. “Winzzz” uses the distinctly robotic, chattering artifacts of stem separation to great effect as it strips PARTYNEXTDOOR’s “The News” down to a single echoing chorus—Do you deserve me? No way—illuminated by a glowing bassline.
Part of Sd-2’s charm is the plasticity Loukeman wrings from his fairly defined style. While he clearly knows what he likes, he’s not afraid to introduce new, off-kilter elements, throwing well-adjusted ears into disarray. “Ride”’s strobing synth lines are supplemented with furious drum breaks and bed squeaks that override the track’s chipmunk vocal squeals with manic, indulgent irreverence. The same anything-goes spirit creeps into Loukeman’s erratic DJ sets, where you’ll catch him mixing synthwave instrumentals into Chief Keef or playing the Shins’ “New Slang” atop a thundering techno beat. When “Real Life Man” whirls together acid-house toplines, chalky guitars, and the plaintive lead of Bryson Tiller’s “Exchange,” the cocktail is both patently ridiculous and effortlessly cool.
If Sd-2 has a fault, it’s that its general breeziness feeds into a subtle but pervasive reticence. Songs plateau rather than peak, lounging in moody states that conclude with little fanfare. Not every piece needs a defined rise and arc, especially in a dance context; Loukeman plays to this angle by emphasizing his production chops, embroidering subtle background details and stutters that jump out on repeat listens. But the unfocused compositions become a problem as the album slips into a comfortable, anodyne lull in its back half, splitting time between interludes and longer tracks that both invoke atmosphere without resolution. On a better-paced project, a small song like “Won’t U” might have a real purpose as a breather between set pieces; instead, its operatic, thrumming synthwave swells ebb into filler. Though the case for Loukeman’s raw talent is airtight, Sd-2 doesn’t quite transcend his worst habits. Even so, it remains a compelling, if occasionally insubstantial, document of an emerging artist with undeniable presence.
