Luke Vibert Presents... Amen Andrews

Luke Vibert is arguably at his best when hes subverting jungle, from his pioneering drillnbass experiments as Plug (which just might have beat Squarepusher to the punch) to his rough-and-tough pirate radio homages as Amen Andrews. Luke Vibert Presents... Amen Andrews is a full double-LP in this style, and its easily one of his strongest releases. All of the albums building blocks are familiar to junglists -- heavy breakbeats, Reese bass lines, ragga deejay samples -- but he assembles them into an incredibly dense mix, then pushes it all further, packing in more samples per minute and slicing the beats into more complex patterns. He pulls a lot of his familiar tricks, such as stringing together samples of several variations on the same phrase (Oh my god, Are you ready, etc.) at a rapid pace, or dropping absurd samples like the zoo animals unleashed during Animen. Compared to other artists working in similar territory, its not as club-tooled as Paul Woolfords Special Request alias, nor is it as shamelessly meta or low-brow as Shitmat. Its self-referential and so gleeful that it almost borders on a loving parody, but it comes from the perspective of someone whos been living with this music in his bloodstream for so long that it couldnt merely be dismissed as some sort of goof. Hes having fun with it, for sure, but its obvious that a sincere love for the culture is there, and he absolutely nails what makes this type of music so enjoyable. ~ Paul Simpson