Lucy Liyou - Crisis (Identity) [Orange Mile] (Experimental)

Lucy Liyou is news to me, but I'm certainly happy to finally be acquainted with her experimental, generally (more on that in a minute) ambient pop ways. With more influences than an impressionable child, she's been blending synthesised field recordings, poetry, Korean folk opera, audiobooks and classical inspirations into dreamy, experimental low-gravity pop for the last three or four years, finally coming to the attention of the keen-eared trippers at the Orange Milk label for her latest transmission - a sonic manifestation of her brave, somewhat disturbingly inspired, semi-autobiographical, theatrical work Mister Cobra, which hits the New York stage this year.

And it just happens to be a banger! A thumping, thudding house kick drum and minimal piano launch the track through the speakers; but before you rush to the dance floor wait for Liyou's whispered, increasingly urgent vocals that gradually inflate to fill the minimal dance music frame. All sorts of vocal snatches then gradually start to jostle for attention, as the track morphs into more propulsive poly-rhythmic form.

The sonic madness then unfolds: sax snippets, piano flourishes, machine noise put through the echo chamber, mildly distressed animal noises and seedy male voice samples and sighs crash, lurch and intertwine, until the track is a swirling, psychedelic, peak-time, leftfield, nu-jazz dance music delight. Just to annoy most DJs, or perhaps delight those looking for a handy transition tool, the tempo inches up - urging the dancers to even more frenetic shape-throwing, before the song suddenly collapses in a spent and silent heap, having finally said its piece. And breathe. Time to catch your breath, before that album arrives.

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Playlist Companion

Find Liyou in the Slow Oddities Playlist.