Please note this bundle will ship for the 31st July 2020

Luke Vibert Presents - Amen Andrews

Luke Vibert doesn’t don his Amen Andrews hat very often - apart from one EP back in 2014, the project has been dormant since a flurry of releases in the early 2000s. It’s quite a treat, then, for Vibert to present a whole album of Amen Andrews material.

Unsurprisingly given the choice of name, Vibert uses Amen Andrews records to satisfy his junglist cravings. This new set features fourteen uptempo selections focussed around the evergreen ‘Amen’ break. The album gets progressively faster as it wears on, too - starting at a positively relaxed 154 bpm, Amen Andrews has topped 170 by the time closing cut ‘Lower’ hoves into view.

While the album is rooted in drum ‘n’ bass, jungle and hardcore, Vibert explores plenty of other sonic pastures here. Sure, there’s meaty sub thwacks underpinning the chopped-up beats of ‘Better Breaks’, but this is preceded by ‘Ready’, a day-glo jam that sounds like it’s been lifted from the soundtrack of an old video game. Stop-start numbers like ‘Big L’ serve to emphasise the iconoclastic streak that has always run through Vibert’s music - particularly when you remember that Vibert was known for turning out the challenging, often somewhat hostile beats of drill ‘n’ bass back in the day.

Breakbeat veteran Luke Vibert flexes his muscles on Amen Andrews, the first LP in a trilogy that the producer is delivering via Hypercolour.

Luke Vibert Presents - Modern Rave

Following on from his Amen Andrews LP, the second release in Luke Vibert’s new trilogy of albums for Hypercolour finds the artist also known as Wagon Christ/Plug/Kerrier District shining a light on something he knows all about - rave music.

Whereas Amen Andrews focussed on fast breakbeats, Modern Rave finds Vibert bringing the tempo down. While some of the tunes here do approach jungle, the bulk of Modern Rave operates between 120 and 140 beats-per-minute. However, these slower speeds do not indicate a drop in energy - Vibert’s never been one for taking his foot off the gas, after all.

Modern Rave acts a sort of crash-course in early rave sounds. Vibert manages to synthesise influences from techno, acid house and deep house with the jungle, hardcore and drum ‘n’ bass tones he locked into on Amen Andrews. While the task of keeping so many stylistic balls in the air is a challenge that would best lesser producers, Vibert pulls it off in style here. The fact that he approaches his task with a madcap sense of fun certainly helps - you can almost picture the grin on Vibert’s face when he was putting together tunes like ‘The Music’ and ‘Dream’, their colourful sounds mixed up like bright chemicals in a mad scientist’s laboratory.

Luke Vibert’s Modern Rave LP is a hugely enjoyable romp through golden-age rave styles.

Luke Vibert Presents - Rave Hop

As you may be able to tell from the title of this record, the third and final installment of Luke Vibert’s new run of Hypercolour LPs finds the prolific producer demonstrating his own ersatz combination of rave and hip-hop sounds. Of course, there has always been plenty of crossover between these two genres, and on Rave Hop Vibert manages to bring both together in a way that is at once respectful and playful.

By and large the ‘hop’ element here comes through in the beats and structure of these tunes. Tracks are helmed by the sort of crisp boom-bap breaks that have underpinned hip-hop for generations now. Vibert then spools these out to create rolling miniature MPC-symphonies - like DJ Shadow, Nightmares On Wax or any of those beloved early Ninja Tune releases, these cuts forego MCs to foreground rhythm and sound.

However, the rest of Rave Hop’s sonic palette draws very much from the early days of dance music culture. In their looped vocals, subby basslines and stabbing chord progressions, many of these tracks come off like after-hours renditions of classic jungle/hardcore tunes. Other moments opt for the more muted tones of deep house - check the woozy keyboards that slouch all over ‘Hot Fingers’ on this front.

The fun, upbeat Rave Hop finds Luke Vibert blending hip-hop savvy with the sounds of rave in a witty yet reverent fashion.