Lover's Acid
Review by Zoë Blade
| Lover's Acid | |
 | |
| Artist | Luke Vibert |
|---|---|
| Label | Planet Mu Records |
| Year | 2005 |
| Rating | ★★★☆☆ |
| Summary | Upbeat and loud acid house. |
This surprisingly coherent album is a compilation of the three 12" EPs '95-'99, Homewerk, and Lover's Acid, all reordered and fit onto a single CD.
The music is upbeat and loud, and if Luke Vibert had stuck to simple four-to-the-floor rhythms with less fancy sequencing, this would have been a perfect mindless floor filler for clubs. Instead, he put in more effort than that, occasionally getting sidetracked by stuttering samples and other tangents.
I wanted to like it a lot more than I did
This album isn't particularly accessible. The first few times I listened to it, I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It is growing on me, though. The pairing of breakbeats and acid lines is still has catchy as it ever was, and this album is full of overcompressed vigour.
If you're going to judge whether or not to get the album based on just one track, I'd recommend giving Acid2000 a listen. It's probably the easiest track on the album to get into.
Lover's Acid is a bit cheesy in places, but judging by the vocal sample "Can you imagine where you will be in the year two thousand?" I think it's safe to assume that Luke Vibert is being satirical in his use of the occasional cliche - a wise move considering that the music is probably better off with them included.
The star of this series is undoubtedly the overdriven Roland TB-303, although the suitably tough drums and accompanying breakbeats come in a close second. The fact that a lot of the percussion sounds like it was performed on something other than Roland drum machines is pretty refreshing. Add to this the heavily compressed sound of each mix, and you end up with a very loud album.
If you hate TB-303 acid lines, don't even bother looking at this. If you love them, though, it's probably worth checking out Lover's Acid as it does provide a refreshingly original perspective on acid house - quite a feat considering how long the genre has been going.
If you're into acid house or IDM, you might love this, but it's definitely not for everyone.