Available on: GLUM 12″ / digital
GLUM released the best single of 2010 and nobody heard it. Lukid’s Blind Spot/Boxing Club was the sour-faced label’s debut and carried two of the most uncompromising, original pieces of music of the year. Indeed, after years of thoughtful downtempo contemplation, the heavily veiled, haunted, paranoid house and techno experimentalism that suddenly came gibbering out of him was shocking. Obviously something had gone very wrong for the lad. Awkward, too, as it was really good.
Happily, it doesn’t appear that either he or GLUM have cheered up since then. The first half of this follow-up 4-track EP contains more familiar Lukid material, albeit with added reticence, which is a good start. ‘My Teeth In Your Neck’ is a rotating skeletal soul number at house tempo and ‘Park It Low’ takes a lonely, fuzzy dancehall/hip hop bounce. They’re lo-fi, heartbroken, stoical; a promising potential for all-out collapse.
And then with the second half comes triumph; Lukid totally loses it. All sense of composure dissolves into a mess of apoplectic rage. ‘Spitting Bile’ nails an instantly memorable bassline and melody worthy of a Top 40 trance monster before being ruined by overblown resonant distortion wailing all over its spraying, slippery house beat. ‘Dragon Stout’ then follows with a battering comparable only to some kind of sonic pissing match between Wiley and Hieroglyphic Being. Piercing, high register square waves flail at each other, its warped bassline slides in and out of pitch, boggle-eyed and oblivious over violent 140bpm handclaps, snares and yelps.
Overall, a superb result for GLUM, if not for Lukid’s anger issues. At the risk of making the miserable bastard happier, you should go out and buy this immediately.
Steve Shaw
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