Whips (vinyl)

'Whips' is a masterclass in tape-saturated house cryptography by Warsaw, Poland's Lutto Lento. Leading on from the crooked equations of his 'F T D 001' debut for Charles Drakeford's label, this six-tracker exhibits a broader range of variations on that ferric-choked, grubby and bugged-out style. Employing the deftest tape loop edits and playful sense of construction/derangement, he uses the format's natural fidelities to distinguish, mask and accentuate his sound from every angle - whether coaxing noxiously murky harmonics out of the asphyxiating bass in darkside bomb, 'Vengo'; disorienting with the frayed chicanery of the ATCQ-sampling intro; or lending an impenetrable, unstable sort of psychedelia to the Delroy Edwards-alike jack blatz of 'Amarena'. Where so many other just whack it on as an afterthought, Lento's innovative tape FX are integral, but wouldn't mean jack if his grooves weren't solid as f**k, too. Tip!