Luke Vibert – We Hear You [Planet Mu]

Vibert is back this time under his own name pushing his unique brand of dance music with its high-end production values and sense of humour. He flirts with many styles and always has done over his long career in electronic music and We Hear You is no different, you get a bit of dubstep, a bit of hip-hop infused electro, break beats, acid house and much more, yet it always sounds like it belongs together as one.

Album opener Belief File shows off Viberts knack for cheeky samples, chopping up hip-hop sound bites to introduce you to the listening experience before your pummelled with a big dirty bassline, skippy drums and a melody made up of what sounds like Steel Drums not unlike the ones used in some classic Aphex Twin. There is an almost dubstep-esq groove here but with a funked up live drum sound. Dive And Lie Wrecked has that dubstep feel to it as well with dubby techno chords and a half step beat and evil sounding bass, but what really makes this track for me is the spooky female vocal sample.

Hot Sick comes on like a ghostly Daft Punk house track with funky filtered bass, beautiful melodies and electro drums. When Vibert plays with melody he creates some really wonderful stuff, the synths here have a chiming reverb drenched feel that sounds, just sublime. One of the more funk infused tracks Batting For England takes samples you swear you’ve heard all your life… and makes a cracking track out of them.

I always like it when Vibert turns his hand to some acid tweaking and that’s exactly what he does on Pretty Old Acid Music, whips out the 303 or whatever he uses and just gets tweaking over a wicked old sounding electro beat. House Stabs is another banger that does exactly what it says on the tin. He takes the ye olde and maybe slightly cliché elements from early house and makes it all into something kind of refreshing.

The slightly mad Marvellous Music Machine comes on like a deranged robot he found lingering on the set of an old sci-fi film, there is a electro meets dubstep feel going on here but with singing robots, it’s a quirky little master piece and the sound of the bass kills it. The vinyl exclusive track Electrophy has a similar vibe going on but with less robot singing and the bass pulse sounds a bit like Dizzee Rascal’s I Luv U.

We Hear You is a quality album that’s really enjoyable to listen to it will get you coming back for more without you realising, it all flows with ease has humour a plenty and loads of interesting ideas. Luke Vibert turns out another quality album that oozes personality.