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Album Review: Leon Vynehall - Music For The Uninvited
House | Saturday 4th October 2014 |
It was released back in March this year but Leon Vynehall's landmark mini LP/double EP is still making waves in the electronic community.
Leon Vynehall is not one to follow trends. A resident of the outskirts of Leicester rather than the centre of London, Vynehall's landmark release is a deeply personal, introspective affair. Speaking in an RA interview, he reveals that it was conceived looking back on his own first musical influences: his mother's mixtapes that she would play on long rides to school in the car. It was a brief stay at his parent's in 2011 that got him looking back on her collections of tapes and records, and he began to take samples and vocal snippets for inspiration. Staying faithful to his origins, he even mastered everything on cassette - accounting for the slight grainey background noise and clunking sounds at the end of each track, which arouses previously forgotten twinges of nostalgia in any listener old enough to remember the casette era. Its a great example of Vynehall's quirks and "imperfections" that only serve to contribute to the richness and depth of this release. Instead of straining to recreate the "classic, old-school Detroit house" which seems to be having a renaissance right now, Music For The Uninvited is solely based on Vynehall's personal experiences and loves: his mother's 80s pop, hiphop and his musical experimentation whilst living in Brighton. It is this which makes the LP so unique and beautiful.
We begin with Under The Deku Tree, a Zelda-influenced curveball of a track - it is almost entirely dominated by friend Laurie (of Eagles For Hands fame)'s crescending cello. Vynehall respectfully adds an unintrusive little back beat - as if tapping along on a table - and complimentary video-game like synths to give the track some catchiness, but otherwise it is a beautifully understated 4 minute slice of a mini-symphony.
Goodthing brings us gently back into more charted waters of house music. Soft, distorted wubbiness leads us by the hand into a bubbling bassline and skittering snares like the sea. The echoing diva vocals are the mermaid of this oceanic track - familiar and seductive, yet nevertheless distorted and strange.
Be Brave, Clench Fists is another totally dreamlike track, once again utilising Laurie's gliding cello chords to euphoric effect. It bears an uncanny resemblance to Pepe Bradock's late 90s masterpiece Deep Burnt, but its no bad thing - a twinkling piano and laid back guitar riffing plus swirling tropical sounds update the track to its full, blissed out hands-in-the-air potential.
Pier Children is our first, out and out peak time dancefloor track. A reverberating, echoing piano gives way to more aggressively catchy stabbing chords - and when the two combine as the track builds up it morphs into a real dancefloor destroyer which nevertheless retains Vynehall's ethereal touch.
Keeping the pace up is one of my personal favourite tracks of the lot, It's Just (House of Dupree). The track begins with a clip from Voguing - The Message, a film about the colourful voguing and ballroom battles of New York. It features the voice of Willi Ninja - who is widely regarded as the godfather of voguing - talking about the various houses. This sets the stage perfectly for another upbeat, captivating dancefloor smash - irresistible synth twirls transport the listener whilst the rhythmic bass and beat is fit for a truly fierce voguing battle . The vocal sample is chopped beyond the point of recognisable words yet nevertheless retains its upbeat tone of voice. When we reach the breakdown point, the track's complexities strip away to reveal more of those beautiful cello strings.
If Under the Deku Tree was dawn, Christ Air is the track leading us into dusk, evoked by steady guitar riffs and orchestral echos; it's darker: subdued, rattling and laid-back.
However, it is St Sinclair which provides the golden sunset to this 40 minute journey. Combining previously heard elements - skittering high hats,bass guitar notes and general graininess - St Sinclair has the added seductive vocal refrain of "this one's for you" lending it its distinctively intimate, chill-out vibes.
In a world of superstar DJs and major label pressure, Vynehall has ignored all the hype and industry influences completely to create a stunning, original and totally pure 40 minutes of house bliss. Even the title - Music For The Uninvited - seems to accentuate Vynehall's staunchly independent vision. In doing exactly what he wants, Leon Vynehall has inadvertently created a future classic and launched his career - if this is the Music For The Uninvited, I'd rather not be at the metaphorical party in the first place.
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We can't wait to catch Leon Vynehall playing alongside Moodymann at The Hydra in November:
http://guestlist.net/event-previews/11189/event-preview-the-hydra-x-electric-minds-x-kompakt-moodymann-joey-anderson-michael-mayer-dolan-bergin-sei-a-more/
@MiriamEJohnson
