Music Without Discipline (LP)

L/F/D/M squeezes off a volley of misshapen bangers and atonal wormholes in Music Without Discipline, making a mutant follow-up to his M Is A Shape (2015) LP and Crocodiles In The Ceiling (2016) EP for Alessio Natalizia (Not Waving) & Sam Willis’ Ecstatic label.

For his third solo LP proper as L/F/D/M, the London-based producer/artist/designer jams, layers and hacks a clutch of new hardware toys, the Akai VX90 and Yamaha TX81Z in particular, into 11 variants of what is essentially a style of no wave or new beta techno.

Pursuing his taste for unique, visceral and affective electronic tones into odder integers of the club, L/F/D/M establishes a jagged line that runs from original ‘80s industrialists thru Larry Heard’s legendary Gherkin Jerks and the scenius of Downwards’ brummie radge packets to a place right between the eyes of 2017.

DJs and dancers will find full fat, wonky weapons ranging from the cranky-assed jacker Dance, You Awful Cunt, thru to a sludgy turn called Birds, a super-tangy Chicago percolator Texan Flower Girl, and the throaty acid gargle of Living Without Gain. But it’s the way in which Richard Smith is just as happy to follow his nose into sparkling vignettes such as After R Version and Ballet, and into the grubby pits of Pinx that really gives this record its shape and asserts its messed-up character.