The Thousands

More astounding, new form music from the strident UK underground this week courtesy of 22 year-old Luke Blair, also known as Lukid.

Steeped in the hyper textural, atmospheric edit style of new psych-beat genius Flying Lotus – but more on a down-low, subtly Ambient, or simply more blazed tip – Lukid’s second album, FOMA, is sequenced music unbound on the astral plane, entrancing and as far gone from its beats and samples digi-design as is possible. Soul-drenched, unhurried and never austere, Blair’s loping, fug-blunted production clips project an alternate, languorous future for instrumental hip-hop.**Opening track, ‘Ice Nine’ is Erik Satie on a vapouriser – its plaintive piano, bed of sample static and tranquilised claps starting the reverie at sub-consciousness level. ‘Raise High the Roof Beam’ follows like a more blunted cut from Manitoba’s debut; with subdued bells, more drum hits and spiraling soft-key melody snippets.

From here the dream’s strength builds with sub basses, drones and the onset of some masterful stumble-beat programming. Ultimately, FOMA is a hypnotically inviting record that rarely sounds ‘electronic’ in the old sense. ‘Sample gaze’ would serve it better, ‘beat impressionism’ or something else pen-jerky like that.