[gtranslate]
Music

Introducing: LVUO

The music industry is an intimidating, swaying leviathan that hungrily flits from trend to trend with an impassioned desire for ‘new’ and ‘exciting’. Trends proliferate and decay with such a brief half-life that it’s more like an endless fashion parade than an amalgamation of culture, technology, influences and ideas.

lvuo

In an environment where music is only as cool as the trend it represents, the revelation that is LVUO has surfaced to give the world their unique take on electronic music.

This is where we start the story of LVUO; it’s a story of subversion, appropriation and reinvention. The Sydney producer’s music is a product of this brave new world. There are plenty of clever subtleties and cultural nods in the heart-breakingly small number of tracks on LVUO’s soundcloud.

I counted*. It’s two.

Let’s take the stronger of the two tracks, Alone Together. It’s like an R&B slow jam with phasers set to ‘frantic’ as a pitch-shifted Daley is dropped in the centre of a compositional hurricane. The chipmunked soul artist warbles over string stabs, bouncy synth riffs and feverishly eclectic percussion. Whoever LVUO is, they know how to build a track from the ground up, and doesn’t allow the beat to misstep for even a second. I can only describe it as being like bubblegum pop meets J-Pop meets some serious electronic mastery. Basically, if this track were created in 2003, LVUO might have been put on trial for being a witch, but it’s 2014 now and we’re more accepting as a society. Thank God.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/157925568″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

U is the other track you’ll find on the Sydney producer’s soundcloud. It was released a month before Alone Together, and is, it has to be said, a touch rougher. The vocals have a jagged quality that takes away from the composition LVUO has put together. The instrumental, however, speaks for itself; it’s a superb beat, with enough energy and enthusiasm to put Wave Racer to shame. The Mary J Blige sample is ambitious, but you can’t possibly stay mad at LVUO for daring to tug at our nostalgic tendencies with the early naughties soul track – that cheeky rascal! As an ascending synth hook is replicated throughout the track with different sounds and sonic textures, everything somehow finds its own place very neatly. Like Alone Together, it’s a fast-paced, almost dizzyingly peppy track, but it never suffers from being cluttered, or having too many ideas explored at the same time

Electronic music producers all find their own niche, for some it’s island chillwave, for others it’s intergalactic trap. LVUO’s own brand of sugary, neo-invigorated electronic pop makes for a fascinating project that will prove to be an essential contribution to the ever widening, ever-bizarre world of electronic music.

*Ah ah ahhh…

FIND OUT MORE ON

▲ FACEBOOK ▲ SOUNDCLOUD

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/156635391″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]