LTO - Storybook (2017) Lossless

Bristol-based solo electronic producer LTO returns in 217 following his 2015 debut, the No Pasa Nada EP. While praise for this EP often focussed on its tense and eerie programming, its deep sonics and waves of static, with Storybook LTO gives us access to the beating heart within the machine. LTO is a member of mysterious electronic collective Old Apparatus. Their music - anonymous, dark, ghostly, subterranean - was reminiscent of garage and grime scenes, but sheened with a nocturnal miasma and a fierce intellect. Acclaim for Old Apparatus is widespread, with very positive reviews coming from The Wire, Dummy Mag, The Quietus, Gilles Peterson among plenty more. Storybooks combines gentle, dulcet synthesis with deep percussive lines, piano dexterity and alien-landscape sound-design softly echoing in and out of the space, like Katie Gately remixed into Brian Eno's ambient records, or the poise of Max Richter filtered through Chris Clark's production lens. It has fluidity and elasticity, a human-ness that enwraps the mechanical parts, in the same sense as Holly Herndon or Nils Frahm. A highly accomplished pianist (indeed, a piano teacher in his civilian life), LTO's astute musicality is the foundation stone beneath the magic and abstractions of Storybook. The record was mastered by Taylor Deupree (Dustin O Halloran, William Basinski, Helios) of 12k Mastering. Fourth physical release for the recently-launched Injazero Records, run by two ex-FatCat Records staffers.