Wagon Christ

Cornish producer wunderkind Luke Vibert has made just about every kind of electronic music since his debut in the early '90s, releasing his takes on each subgenre under different pseudonyms. In recent years, Vibert has focused primarily on grime, acid and disco house, and experimental collaborative releases. Toomorrow is Vibert's first album in almost seven years as Wagon Christ, his hip-hop-based project, and the sound is of reinvigoration. The beats are fun and funky, less self-conscious than Vibert has sounded in recent years. Most of the tracks contain classic boom-bap breaks and vocal samples, playing up the classic aesthetic of mid-'80s electro and rap without a shred of irony in earshot. The opening title track runs through a dozen renowned samples alone, including "get wicked," taken from Public Enemy, while the infamous Fab 5 Freddy "Fresh" and "Ahh" scratches make an appearance in the appropriately named "Respectrum." Though most of the samples are arranged in their essentially unaltered forms, the album doesn't come off like some kid who found a breaks tool record and is trying to pass it off as something original. Vibert's musical compositions unerringly push the boundaries of hip-hop, breaks and funk while remaining historically aware. The messiah has returned.