Ancient Mechanisms

On *Ancient Mechanisms*, London\'s LV dispense with the offbeat vocals of collaborators like Joshua Idehen and Okmalumkoolkat in favor of a different flavor: the enigmatic jazz piano trills of Armenian artist Tigran Hamasyan. Sometimes the duo places his nimble keystrokes over the futuristic and jazzy broken-beat rhythms that are their signature (\"Hammers and Roses,\" \"Jump and Reach\"), but tracks like mysterious mover \"Dar Souiri,\" the rainy-day \"Detent,\" and the lushly layered \"Infinite Spring\" explore more unusual ambient possibilities.

Ancient Mechanisms, L.V.'s first album on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings, finds the South London duo branching out a bit from the garage/dubstep scene that spawned them.

Out of the excellent urban expansion 'Islands' that followed the slightly scatter-shot world bass movement 'Sebenza', the LV unit scoff at