Sound & Vision with Lutalo

With an ability to dissect and reimagine genre conventions, the music of Lutalo is one that whilst intricately experimental is all about balance. Fusing lo-fi, DIY vocals with a backbone of distorted fuzz, the unique self-produced creations of Lutalo are teeming with hidden equilibriums. 

And much like their music, when we caught up with Lutalo to chat through their picks, the vibrancy and sense of character that first drew us to their tracks were again visible within their answers.

Three albums I love:

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

UMO’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra has been a top album for me in the last few years for its overall fuzzy lo-fi aesthetic and its simplistic vamping structure. I just love the way they use breakbeats mixed with rock underneath their tracks on this album, it really hit a tone with my hip-hop background. A lot of the songs on this are just the same verses and chorus’ being looped, and in some cases that would be very repetitive and boring. Yet for me it’s quite the opposite, it causes me to analyze every instrumental layer, every chord progression but still leaves room to contemplate the lyrics. Stylistically this album is one of those albums I just wish I’d made.

MF DOOM & MADLIB – Madvillainy 

My second album has to be Madvillainy, for its instrumental strength and lyrical mastery. I feel this album could be in a lot of people’s top three but it made it onto mine because it was what I grew up listening to. It’s been that one consistent thing in my life. And as I’ve matured, my understanding of the themes it touches  have unsurfaced, I’ve gained clarity. I’ve reflected a lot on this album, about the things I like and don’t like, and for that, it’s earned its place.

Spirit of the Beehive – Hypnic Jerks.

Lastly Spirit of the Beehive’s Hypnic Jerks.  I stumbled across this album when I was at a pizza shop in Brooklyn. I remember hearing it over the speakers and thinking, this feels so new yet familiar to me. I love its chaotic structure and raw sound. It made me want to get out and release all this pent-up energy that I didn’t realize I even had. It’s a big part of the reason I want to make energetic music currently because it made me realize that I have some stuff to work out. I love unpredictability in life, things that aren’t certain and I think this album fits into that.

A film that I love:

Edgar Wright – Scott Pilgrim vs The World

At heart, I’m a big nerd for video game references and indie music culture. This film is great not because of its story but because of how well delivered it is. I really appreciate Edgar Wright’s attention to detail, his timing with shots and music. is genius The soundtrack is pretty great too, with some original music for it featuring the likes of Beck, Broken Social Scene, and Metric. Of course, it’s a goofy and stupid movie but I think that’s what makes it fun. So many tropes and stereotypes that I’ve seen in the music scene that just makes me not take it all so seriously. The whole Scott and Ramona Flowers romance is chill and all, but not really why I’m watching. Mostly, it’s just to see the details I didn’t notice before, the music and visual direction, and enjoying the small jokes.

A book that I love:

John Muir – The Mountains of California 

This was shared with me by a friend in New York during a time when I was feeling very detached from nature and was really craving this connection. This book is a biography from an explorer named John Muir that was sent by Teddy Rosevelt during the creation of the U.S national parks. So basically, this book is a super dense and detailed description of his experiences, but that’s not what stands out about it. Muir’s way of describing the events around him is so poetically structured it’s near impossible to not have a beautiful visual painted in your head while reading. It’s a book I go to now and then when I’m feeling uninspired by the human experience. It helps keep me grounded and grateful for the little details in life.

A song that means a lot to me:

MF DOOM – Strange Ways

I remember my father showing me this song when I was a kid and explaining each line to me. Hip-Hop was the way my father educated me about being black in America, and the history of our people. This song touches on a lot of things, but the overall statement that sticks is about how governments or tyrannical forces treat their people and others across the world brutally and hypocritically. When looking at it all honestly, these people in power have strange ways of operating and seemingly cannot be reformed. And this was said best by MF DOOM himself.

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