Lu - Share The Load

by Maarten Schiethart

published: 15 / 9 / 2004

Label: Tonevendor
Format: CD

intro

Addictive urban avant-dub on second release from LU, the moniker for New Yorker and electro artist Matthew Dingee

At the turn of the century Matthew Dingee formed LU after splitting with Stephen Gardner. 'Share The Load' is LU's second album and works like the smouldering fired off with the seminal Lorelei releases he - LU - took part in. To some extent, LU being the King Tubby of New York, this music is avant-dub. Most prominently in 'Cut The Tentacle' and 'Pressure to Relax', a riddim falls short of becoming a housey vibe and instead restricts to pure resonance and pounding echo beats. LU demands to be played loud. Not by any gimmick however. Its addictive sense of mystery guides your arm towards the volume meter. With a sparse edge in sound, firmly rooted in New York's No Wave movement, 'Share the Load' crawls into you like a virus. Urban soundscapes described with bassline narratives - trodding, shuffling and exploring - render cinematic images of heat, asphalt closer to melting than sweltering, space in concrete buildings like basements and apartments with the smell of the Caribbean or dust from a desert. 'Share the Load' could be the epitome of mental headphone sex. I seem to have blasted my headphones while listening to LU and after getting the headphones back from the repair shop, 'Share the Load' was the first album I checked back to.

Track Listing:-

1 A La Casa
2 Cartoon Mouse Tail
3 Not Enough Stuff
4 Amateurs Talk Strategy
5 Cut The Tentacle
6 Pressure To Relax
7 Unicorn Feeding Time
8 Hot Asphalt Overhead
9 Clean Dirt Only
10 Theory Of Everything
11 Doodoo Like Dada

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