Luomo: The Present Lover

Frubba!? Nooga?! Hee-Hay? Teedle-nee-pa-pa?

Present Lover is coming out on like BMG or sumting, yes? I believe Tos is correct, in the fall.

And it's gooooooood.

Benelux distributor.

grrrr...

heheh, that's "Old Europe" for ya. :) One month to go, I can live with that.

... is all I can think or say right now.

Also why I have i not heard this MRI remix of "tessio" before?

btw, the bridge (that's right, bridge) on "What Good" is the most heart-stoppingly ecstatic moment of his career so far.

The Massive Attack remix is astonishing, what you would expect from a Luomo remix at first which, naturally, is great, and then it goes on a microrave tip, complete with a couple of outstanding Orbital-style moments. I don't have the words to explain it but some of you do, so please seek it out.

Has anyone else got "Waltz For Your Eyes", the limited 12" on scheinselbständig (sst 5)? Tricky to find but it looks like it's still available at Juno Records. It's not the best thing he's done to be honest, but it has a nice acoustic guitar feel, half r'n'b and half Balearic, and a nice lyric - "Can't look at their eyes anymore, it's you I wanna be living for" - reputedly meant for his loved one. Perhaps the old goat has settled down and doesn't need to elliptically orbit his lyrical purpose any more.

Is the Euro-American release date disparity a pan-Atlantic date formatting confusion? 6/9 means the 6th of September in these parts.

And Matos, do you need any favours doing? Lawns watering? Windows cleaning? Ovens degreasing? Give us a shout, I'm sure I'll think of something you could do for me.

Oh, and I watched Vladislav Delay live few weeks ago. I can't listen to IDM glitch at all any more, and I went just because I was hoping he'd throw in some forthcoming Luomo material in the mix for surprise - all I got was an acapella at the end. The Delay stuff I just can't enjoy and appreciate, but the guy himself was reeeeally into it, swaying in trance and punching the air with every eardrum-rupturing glitch. He also dropped in Tricky's "Christiansands" and "Makes Me Wanna Die" for no apparent reason in the midst of his act (I 've heard that apparently, his three fave albums ever are "Maxinquaye", "Protection" and "No Protection"). And he started off with the intro from the Tweet album! Love the guy.

Also, he's super HOTT!!! Why he chose those old baldhead shots for promo pics mystifies me. He's let some hair down in the meantime, and now looks like the most shaggable, beautifulest scandinavian lovegod ever!

(if you can tell the difference you're lying, especially if you're encoding it to MP3)

some herbert is really good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ng0fVPXVBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ng0fVPXVBs

oops

Herbert was pretty good around the time people still talked about microhouse, it's only since about 2004 that he's become really insufferable.

I have never been able to get into Farben's Textstar despite multiple attempts but I love Luomo.

Never got into Farben nor even Vocalcity but Perfect Lover is such a classic

farben is cool but that is from the perspective of approaching him via mille plateaux etc, i can see why it would be a bit dry for someone entering that world from mnml techno or the rest of ~microhouse~ or whatever

i remember vocalcity and textstar being talked about together but temperamentally or in sound design terms they are little alike

The thing people never talk about with Luomo is how full and satisfying his basslines are, not like in an oafish UK bass kind of way, but they're really sumptuous and glue the other elements of the track together so well, you could ride them for hours.

that is because they are so satisfied they don't have time to talk about basslines

xp Matt that's exactly what initially drew me to him. How does one make synth basses do those sort of things?

what makes you the stranger?

i'm the present, the true lover

best album

Word

ow oh ao ao oooo oooooo

don't say it's false.

i'm only following my thoughts.

Perfect album.

some of the synths on "what good" are blowing my mind

One of my fave albums. Reminds me of Barthes.

It's no Vocalcity. Both of them pale next to Karhunainen, however.

I guess we don’t look for the same thing in Luomo but this is just no contest for me. Present Lover is super classic, the rest is far behind.

Karhunainen is great but lol at the idea that it holds a candle to either of the first two luomo albums.

luomo is the only music i've listened to for the last like 3 weeks

I'm cleaning up black coffee and feta cheese

Jordan question:

The Weeknd:Vampire Weekend::Luomo:”the rhythm of the saints”?

That doesn't look like the right order for that comparison.

I would still love to see it explained

Also thanks for reminding me to check Convivial again

The next Luomo album, 2003's The Present Lover, was a major label misadventure

annoyed to be reminded that this sentiment is common enough that apparently it had to be stated in the resident advisor vocalcity rewind review

Dumbfuckery of the highest order.

still one of my favorite and most-listened-to records

Same here. Instantly takes me back to 2004 too. Walking round a rainy Barcelona. Techno and house had collided with radio pop and things would never be the same again

<3

What else has been good, that sounds like this, since this?

Unai’s A Love Moderne on Force Tracks kinda?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299B_QVNRVg

Thanks for making me pull this out. It my top 5 of that decade for sure. And just like you, so evocative of a very specific personal time and place.

Yeah same, thanks for reminding me how long it's been. I love this album but seem to have memory-holed it for half a decade or so, which is weird cos a lot of my listening is obsessively reviving the stuff I loved from around this time.

One of the greatest albums ever.

It's held up so well, the production is outrageous.

I don't think anything really sounds like Vocalcity. The closest Luomo project is Paper Tigers from 2006, which I need to revisit.

The Vladislav Delay bandcamp page has a subscription that I've opted back into after a break, and it looks like Sasu's been posting a lot of stems, outtakes from old projects, previews of upcoming work, and genre experiments, but there's either just not that much Luomo material on the shelf or he's kind of done with it for now.

All kinds of great stuff, though! And he's pretty active in responding to comments and questions.

This sounds great. I think I will subscribe. My only hesitation in doing so is the same as it is for any other artist or writer I like on Bandcamp, Substack or Patreon: I know that, at some point, I will have to cancel. Ironically, it is this preemptive guilt that has prevented me from supporting more folks, but there's only so much discretionary spending to go around!

mh, any highlights you would recommend? There's a lot here! I'm less interested in the officially released material, as I have a lot of that already, and I don't really have a use for the stems, though those may be interesting to hear at least once from the perspective of trying to reverse engineer Sasu's process. My favorite of his projects, aside from Luomo and VD, is stuff like Uusitalo and Conoco, if that helps.

I could probably write up some notes. I started digging through the backlog over the weekend and there are a handful of standouts and a lot of experiments, some more interesting than others. I'm intrigued by the ones tagged "vd5" that I assume are from an upcoming Vladislav Delay Quintet album

I don't think anything really sounds like Vocalcity. The closest Luomo project is Paper Tigers from 2006, which I need to revisit.

For whatever reason had never listened to Paper Tigers, but there's a permanent shrine to Vocalcity in my soul so checking it out now.

What else has been good, that sounds like this, since this?

― piscesx, Sunday, March 16, 2025 2:22 PM (yesterday)

the weeknd - "rockin"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nox2RGWOOdE

holy shit, you weren't kidding - that might be the closest match that I've ever heard!

I wish it was better

i feel like it has to be intentional xp

i love that song

Sasu has co-production credits on a Tinashe song and it's nice but just sounds like of like a Burial-esque garage production

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDckPd9n6Qs

i have listened to this album like once a week for years