It was bound to happen: in all the rush to run back to 1982 for beats and patches it seems what was passing for sharp dance music a couple of years ago suddenly seemed very far from the dancefloor. It turns out glitch wasn't the future of electronica after all, and being that few had expressed a desire for a greater abundance of convulsions at the club prior to 1995, I guess it's not surprising.
What's surprising is the lay of the land in 2003; the rocket scientists and bedroom punks have gone their way-- Squarepusher, Aphex, \xB5-Ziq and 808 State now seem either hopelessly in their own worlds, or consciously at odds with what hipster electro-heads are pumping. Second-generation comers ranging from Boards of Canada to Lali Puna to Hrvatski exhibit varying degrees of familiarity with dance music that actually promotes happy movement, but if anything have evolved along a path born directly of their immediate predecessors rather than connecting the dots to some grand, electronic funk party.
UK techno duo LFO began life as many of their contemporaries, labeled the future of dance; the fallacy being that back then, most electronic music with a beat was "dance" music, for lack of a better non-industrial umbrella. The funny thing was, LFO was the real thing. Gez Varley and Mark Bell's 1991 debut Frequencies is one of the truly seminal documents for IDM, not just because it united electro, house, hip-hop breakbeats, and Detroit and UK techno in a vaguely experimental bent, but because it was one of the few records everyone had access to. Pre-Internet, and before the dawn of filesharing, this was as important a factor as any for young "intelligent" dance music.
So, here we are many years later, and wouldn't you know, those very qualities practically brand LFO as an oldies act. Of course, this is all relatively speaking (the only kind of speak that makes much sense anymore), but Bell's tunes on Sheath-- his first record as LFO in seven years, and first without Varley-- are close to quaint. This is not to say he sounds behind the times necessarily, but possibly that he's no longer proceeding at the same velocity as many of the people he must have inspired. Sheath is a friendly, playful record-- one that will likely return as much joy as you're willing to afford it in listening time-- but it's decidedly lonely, in the same way your parents are lonely after you've left home forever. Life and LFO go on, and doubtlessly still have adventures left to uncover, though the days of having to prove themselves are probably gone.
Bell's most promising work sounds as if related to his tenure working with Björk. "Blown", "Monkeylips", "Moistly", "Sleepy Chicken" and "Premacy" not only sound as if they might have been backing tracks for Vespertine at some point, most of them sound better! "Sleepy Chicken" is especially wonderful, a model of slinky grace, despite its goofy title. Bell sprinkles an arrangement of repeating jazz bassline and blurry piano with mildly distorted static-pulse, giving the song an unearthly, pixie-dust ambience, then injects a strange, elastically prone pogo-synth loop about halfway in. If ever trip-hop had a future, it is this song.
The first single from the album is "Freak", a very straightforward take on the bouncy electro LFO helped define at the outset of the 90s. Unless you're not listening to any other new electro, it probably won't sound terribly distinctive, though there's hardly anything inherently unpleasant about it. However, when the chorus promises that "this is going to make you freak," perhaps something hotter than Inside Edition-assimilated bass hits should be going off. Fending a little better is "Snot" (another less than becoming title); yes, it's probably only going to sound fresh to the Fatboy Slim crowd, though it's hard to hate something so vibrantly spaz-joyous. The uptempo, big-beat motorik serves Bell's fiendishly simple, but very effective bassline well.
Since LFO hardly need to be innovators to produce a good record, I don't have much problem recommending Sheath, with the caveat that when pleasant, easy-going atmospheres set in, sometimes amiable disinterest on listeners' parts follow shortly. Perhaps it's merely the fact that Bell's strength seems to reside in his softer sides that fools me into thinking his more extroverted outings are lacking. In any case, even after the wait, he's probably as close to a sure, comfortable thing as you'll find.
