Luomo: The Present Lover

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spray painted leapord print? carry it on your shoulder?

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 08:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

I like it more than the first album. It's more poppy. Very summer. Actually it reminds me of Everything But the Girl a bit. Maybe Luomo can cross over to the yuppie house market ;) Present Lover is still the best imho.

― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 13:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

I agree with Ben- 'Present Lover' is probably, by my ears, the most perfect thing I've heard in the past year or so. The one moment in the song that crystallizes everything for me occurs after that solo, when the singer sort of breathe-sings 'I wish', then it goes back to 'the true lover', and then this noise like the revving of an engine while everything else drops out. It makes my knees buckle even when I'm sitting down.

― Kevin H (Kevin H), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

i just don't get why everyone raves over luomo. it's the dullest pop house i have ever heard just as vladislav delay is the dullest dub techno i've ever heard. the most overrated finn of all time?

― stirmonster, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

Vladislav Delay is "dub techno"?!

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

White Light/White Heat is also the dullest movie I ever watched and Citizen Kane is the most boring book I ever read and also Boney M are the most boring rappers ever and Miss Kittin' is the most boring rock and roll artist.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

I was kind of in stirmonster's camp before (tho perhaps not quite as extreme), but the new one has brought me round.

― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 17:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

oh for pedants' sake! yes he's dub techno.

― stirmonster, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

ever wonderd why ilm is 99.9% male. yup guys. that's why.

― stirmonster, Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

why?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Stirmonster is right -- girls don't like arguing, they like flowers and butterflies and barbie and pink things. Also cooking, but not y'know, cars.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

[yep, still rock'n that preemptive strike, j0hn]

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

and the lifetime network, sterl.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

yes, but have they cottoned to the Oxygen Network the way they're supposed to yet?

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

For me, it's not a matter of being a "pedant" or even being "right". There's valuable discourse taking place on these boards and unless you have some aversion to accuracy I don't see what the problem is with hashing shit out. It's not an attack on you stirmonster, IRL I'd query my best friend or a new acquaintance in the same manner. I've only got Entain and Multila, but I personally don't hear similar working methods in Delay's stuff and the rest of the Chain Reaction crew. But I guess it probably does all get lumped under that label. Anyway, feel free to set me straight!

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 18:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'd call the Delay stuff more ambient-dub than anything; it pretty much just sits there and bubbles up sometimes before settling back down. I'm NOT much of a Delay fan outside of Luomo, in fact, though the bio w/the new one mentions some hip-hop thing he's working on, which could be interesting.

I've heard reports that the album's starting to get around a bit.

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 May 2003 19:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

this album isn't listed as coming out anywhere in jolly old england.
even amazon makes no mention.

has someone made it up ?

― piscesboy, Sunday, 18 May 2003 15:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

No sign of a UK release date, from my previous experience the UK gets Force Tracks/ Mille Plateaux releases a couple of weeks AFTER Germany and the US.

your best bet is to sign up with the weekly e-mail mailing list @ Manchester's electronic music online shop Boomkat: http://www.boomkat.com/

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Sunday, 18 May 2003 16:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

For this sort of stuff you've gotta check www.amazon.de. Zee Germanz own zee house musik, jawol? Job wins, they say: 10 june. They also have a picture of the cover. I like it. The album is stunning and would be perfect if he'd left off Tessio. Ah but those closing moments on Shelter. Sigh.

― Omar (Omar), Sunday, 18 May 2003 18:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00009AHMW.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Sunday, 18 May 2003 18:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Her left arm looks kind of overdeveloped.

― Curt (cgould), Sunday, 18 May 2003 19:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well, that makes up for the underdeveloped right one.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Sunday, 18 May 2003 22:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

When did Bridget Fonda lose her right arm?

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 19 May 2003 11:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sam Raimi chopped it off

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 19 May 2003 11:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

good lord, that's one ugly cover

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 19 May 2003 14:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

it looks very 80s sytle mag ala blitz and the face

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 19 May 2003 14:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

it looks like a revlon ad

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 19 May 2003 14:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

is it a bite?

what're the sources?

― gaz (gaz), Monday, 19 May 2003 14:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sterling it's not arguing in general that's male type behavior, in fact Mr Diamond TOTALLY AVOIDS stirmonster's arg: "this is the dullest [x] i've ever heard" - Mr Diamond sez "but it's not [x] at all" - the only way this furthers the discussion is that it makes possible the argument that because it's not [x] but [y] it's magically not dull --> but Mr Diamond didn't say this, he just kept chipping away at his categories

anyway i love presents but i'm not sure if i love luomo; i haven't heard the new one but it seems sort of wibbly

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 19 May 2003 14:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

it's wendy out of wendy and lisa !!
it is though !

― piscesboy, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

I like that cover! It is appropriate to the album too. I mean, let's face it, it's all very smooth, tasteful and coffeetable. (Which I don't necessarily have any problem with).

― Ben Williams, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

(In fact I think it is long past time for a transvaluation of these terms ;)

― Ben Williams, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

but that's not a [transvaluation] that a [re-evaluation]! ha! (just kidding; i think the transvaluation happened some time ago though that may just be an age thing)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 19 May 2003 15:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Not for music criticism, it didn't.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

i don't have any problem with smooth, coffee table respectability either! i just don't think cover girl ads clipped from my mother's mid-80s issues of elle and cosmo are very glamorous! (ha they certainly were coffee table though.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 19 May 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is it meant to be simply glamorous tho? There's something kind of off about it... and not just the arm. It's kind of cheesy, I like that.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah, i will admit it has a bit of a cheesy edge, which is nice, espcially compared to the "fractal graphix & code-titles" of so many of his contemporaries.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 19 May 2003 15:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

it would be more transgressive if he had appropriated a look from one of the other magazines on my parents coffee table, like sports illustrated or horitculture specialist.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 19 May 2003 15:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

"The Present Gardener" doesn't quite have the same ring.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 19 May 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

i like the cover. but if i buy this i'll only show it to people that know it's super new shiny tiny techdubmicroshufflewhatzit and not anything like that naff 'relaxing' 'ambient' cd that came with my mom's copy of "women's health" or somesuch.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Monday, 19 May 2003 17:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Are we sure that's a "he" on the front, though?

― Clarke B., Monday, 19 May 2003 18:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

Rather, a "she"?

― Clarke B., Monday, 19 May 2003 18:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's like that Lords of Acid thing, isn't it?

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 19 May 2003 18:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah somehow I picked up that vibe too (something about that arm?)
But I agree with Ben, the cover fits with the music. And don't all recent Luomo covers feature these sort of glamorous/magazine pictures?

― Omar (Omar), Monday, 19 May 2003 18:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

Dammit, though, I'm already kind of worried. The cover of Vocalcity is so gorgeous, an amazingly sparkly, tactile *thing* that upon closer inspection reveals itself to be a disco ball. The new album doesn't have that kind of double-layeredness. It seems like a statement: "This music, while sonically complex and intricate and blah blah, is actually quite sexy and glamorous!" My response is: "Well duh, it's been like that all along! Did you think people didn't notice?" Maybe I've been reading ILM for too long, but for Luomo to make an album where the vocals are completely up-front and pop-tastic seems so, well, obvious, and that in itself is a little bit of a pre-release let-down for me. I tend to like "logical extensions" of an artistic approach less than the intermediate steps, though, so take that for what it's worth.

― Clarke B., Monday, 19 May 2003 18:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

But the vocals aren't really that pop-tastic and the sexyness to me seems haunted. So don't worry too much Clarke. :)

― Omar (Omar), Monday, 19 May 2003 19:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

That could actually be Luomo on the cover. Just a guess.

― david day (winslow), Monday, 19 May 2003 21:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

He does kinda look like that, though.

― david day (winslow), Monday, 19 May 2003 21:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hmm, I'm not sure what Tracer is on about up there. Tracer, please tell me how the opinion "the dullest dub techno I've ever heard" constitutes an "arg"? What am I supposed to engage with there?

In any case my only point w/ stirmonster was that his labelling of the Delay stuff seemed dismissive, lumping it in with the rest of Chain Reaction stable and causing me to wonder what he was hearing in it. I questioned his characterization because I didn't want someone stumbling on this thread who hadn't heard Delay to think that "techno dub" is all there was to it; most of it is beatless. How on earth did I "keep chipping away"? I made one terse post! Then clarified, and invited stirmonster's thoughts, but he never replied.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 19 May 2003 23:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Some thoughts on the album:

1) I like it more *and* less than the first album, if that makes sense. It's definitely a compromise - he's given up some things in order to do other things eg. the general pattern here is of really propulsive, obviously disco grooves with intermittent stretches of noisy interruptions vs the really quite organic and comparatively mistake-free glitch-house landscapes of Vocalcity. I don't know if the conscious-mistakes really do it for me that much (eg. I'm a bit ambivalent about the new version of "Tessio", which feels more forced than the original) but the propulsiveness is really wonderful in a way that doesn't contradict the beauty of the first album - especially when he just goes for straightforward tearjerker glory on "So You", "Could Be Like This", "What Good" and "Shelter" (which should be the last song on every mixtape ever).

2) It does have a very strong feel of good taste/catwalk fashion/magazine spread refinement to it. I agree with Ben that this ain't necessarily a bad thing - and I like EBTG as well. Actually this in context with Digital Disco (and maybe Coloma and related stuff) is a shift within the broader microhouse scene towards a conscious, dance-oriented version of New Pop. In my head I'm calling this stuff "neuromanticism".

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 00:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

Skipping 302 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Also thanks for reminding me to check Convivial again

― or something, Monday, 28 January 2019 23:59 (five years ago) link

one year passes...

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

― lowercase (eric), Sunday, 24 May 2020 11:50 (four years ago) link

Dumbfuckery of the highest order.

― Matt DC, Sunday, 24 May 2020 11:52 (four years ago) link

three years pass...

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

― here 1st (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 7 June 2023 19:52 (eleven months ago) link

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

― mmmm, Wednesday, 7 June 2023 20:25 (eleven months ago) link

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