We Hear You

Luke Vibert is back with an album under his own name that defies expectations. On ‘We Hear You’ he melds modes and effects across genres with his trademark quick wit and deft skills into a very solid, listenable and enjoyable album, one of his best to date. The songs on this album bend genre rules to Luke’s stylistic traits, his ear for great idiosyncratic samples, sweetly strange melody, big bass and sloppy drums. For example, songs like ‘De-pimp Act’ connect the dots between Terry Riley, dubstep bass and hip hop with a lightness that makes it seem like an everyday occurrence; ‘Hot Sick’ and ‘Square Footage’ sound like Daft Punk’s dreams distilled. In contrast, ‘Dive and Lie Wrecked’ mixes up scary bass with 2-step drums and G-funk melody into something very much stranger than the sum of its parts. He regularly mines the best bits of the old school too, for example, ‘House Stabs’ mixes Inner City style stabs with melodic diva vocals and tight, swinging drums. Maybe if Luke was from L.A. and not Cornwall, people’s perception of his work would be very different, and let’s be honest maybe if every album he has made was as good as this one that perception might change too, but ‘We Hear You’ definitely goes a long way to address any doubts that Luke is nothing less than a producer in a league of his own making strange and brilliant music.

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