Album Review: Wagon Christ Toomorrow

Album cover for Toomorrow by Wagon Christ. Photo / Supplied

Stars: 4/5
Verdict: Quality instrumental beats your brain can dance to

Obsessive and slightly mad musical geniuses are always the best sort of people to be creating this sort of electronic musical wizardry.

Wagon Christ is an alias powered by Cornwall producer Luke Vibert (who also goes by the name of Plug, among many others) and the music he makes can best be described as instrumental hip-hop meets exotic dance music. Emerging from the 90s, Vibert comes from the same school of thought as DJ Shadow and Kid Loco, and takes as much influence from ambient terrorist Aphex Twin as he does from Public Enemy.

This sixth album is Wagon Christ's most inviting, as it bops, bubbles and mooches along, but always with some twisted surprises thrown in, like the eerie underground funk of Oh I'm Tired and the scything laser techno house of Lazer Dick. It's very much in the vein of New Zealand's own hip-hop influenced funk practitioner Sola Rosa, only Vibert's take is a little more mangled. Yet Toomorrow sparkles, and a cheeky personality shines through on tracks like Sentimental Hardcore, with its mooted Donald Duck trumpet and beautifully jittering rhythms, and on the swinging beat carnage of the brilliantly named Manalyze This!.

While it's not quite in the pioneering, fresh realm of Wagon Christ's 90s classics Tally Ho and Throbbing Pouch, there's no faulting his intriguing left-of-centre dance music and ability to produce perfectly honed beats and pieces.

- TimeOut