Vladislav Delay

Vladislav Delay's latest release is a seductive matrix of intersecting, asymmetrical rhythms, but not the sort you've come to expect from Sasu Ripatti under his Vladislav Delay guise. In fact, unlike his previous full-length, Vantaa, Kuopio flirts with some of the energy heard on Ripatti's earlier Luomo material, minus the vocals. On one hand, its sound is firm and dubwise, with dense, voluptuous bass, yet just as much as Kuopio is sensuous, supple and corporeal, it also achieves a weightless fluidity via its coy, elusive pulse. Some pieces are more straightforward, but others adopt a jittery, hiccupping beat that at once suggests murky dub-house, yet also gestures towards the loose programming heard in so-called "wonky" material a few years back. And even when the pulse ends up becoming more of a question mark than an assertive statement, the music still speaks as directly to the body as to the mind. It's rare that someone strikes that balance so well that you forget about the ass-brain dichotomy, but Delay, of course, is far from a rookie in that game.