Luke Solomon is never afraid to risk a fright to a dancefloor, and this new EP, Everything in Reverse, from Steve Lawler’s VIVa Music is as strange and dangerous as you can imagine.
I’m not sure this is the best way to put it, but the EP sounds like something vaguely recalled from an old DAT and then recreated from memory using modern tools. Short references to classic records are made through opportune samples and some of the cliches of that era embedded through the three original tracks on Everything In Reverse (and maybe the title’s a clue too). Misdirection makes you wonder where this is leading, leads you to believe this is going to be either a nostalgia trip or a track smacked out of left field and brings you somewhere else entirely.
The title track is a retro mental scrub, with a vocal by Sam Lynham that sounds like the angel of our baser instincts suggesting something that we’ll grimly regret. Simple chords always sound the most sinister, and here they gave me the unsettling feeling of a carnival at night or a children’s song in a John Carpenter film. “Rhythm Control” sounds to me like classic, primitive House – I can almost see the shoulders rolling and the heads down, being shot from side to side by the rubber band bassline – but again there’s nothing obviously “retro” about it, except for all of it.
This is a pretty strange record, yet it feels like so much of it is both open to interpretation and demanding that you do so. I have spoken to dozens of DJs in my day who pled for their colleagues to “take a chance” more often – and then roll out yet another cloned Nu Deep Haus record when they get their own chance to roll the dice. Luke just gives you something out of nowhere and asks you what you think of it. Like Henry Chinaski’s face, I think it’s beautiful.
