The Present Lover

Sasu Ripatti (aka Vladislav Delay) thought the first Luomo album, Vocalcity, was a failure. It made you wonder how they measured success; that album still resonates as one of the truly great house albums of the ‘00s. On The Present Lover, Ripatti buffed the textures to an impossible shine. Everything here feels glitzy and glam, gone are the tentative glitch-scapes, replaced with an ‘80s pop heart: at times, it feels as manicured and stage-managed as albums by ABC and Scritti Politti. But it’s also treacherously seductive, a labyrinthine structure of ever-mutating desire, as though the singers, adrift on the oil-slicks of perfumed texture Ripatti designs here, are playing out a Groundhog Day loop of amorous confusion. A reworked “Tessio,” which also appears on Vocalcity, signals the differences – here, on Vocalcity, the song’s a woozy lament, but here, it’s all strip-lit fashion catwalks.