Vladislav Delay, perhaps better known for his ambient work, assumes his Luomo disguise for some epic deep house. And when I say epic, I mean it in the best way; these tracks take their time to develop fully, adding and subtracting elements, rather than just maximizing their time on the dancefloor. “Market,” the opening track, starts with a steady beat and some sweeping tech-house chords and doesn’t let go; “Synkro” has some whispery vocals floating atop the rhythms and submerged melodies. Even though the tracks are long they never lose either their intensity or their interest. The best track on Vocalcity, “Tessio,” continually morphs, bypassing the whole house jam and becoming something more of a meditation on house. “She-Center” closes the album with more of the deep and dark groove to which we’ve grown accustomed. An amazingly beautiful album.

I would imagine most people that understand this comment will already know Luomo, but think Basic Channel meets Theo Parrish, maybe with a touch of Herbert. Tracks on the CD are semi mixed so as to flow into one another. Highly innovative use of vocal samples and other motifs that twist, mutate, and flow in and out. Consistently high quality throughout. Superb.

Vladislav Delay is often lumped in with IDM, and his name gets dropped on the list quite a bit. His work previous to this album mostly falls into the minimal dub house tip, with emphasis on the minimal dub parts. On Vocalcity, he's shifted the balance of these ingredients towards the house side.

Six tracks, averaging about 12 minutes in length each, explore a variety of ways of taking house music (and make no mistake, if you didn't know that Luomo was a Chain Reaction alumnus, you would call this album a house record without blinking an eye) into new directions. And as the title suggest, there are lots of vocals.

Most tracks have a clear git-down groove that dominates the entirety of the track, with the central part of the track really laying it on for the dancefloor kids. What's so refreshing about the album is that, like any good house record, it is sexy, hot stuff. Most of it is not as fast as most house, but this makes it all the more hot-n-sweaty. The cool, laid back ambiance of dub and the alienation of minimalism permeate each track, more so usually in the second half where the groove starts to mutate and the vocals fall to bits. From minimalism, he uses the technique of making subtle changes in each measure, mostly by riding the effects instead of changing the samples/melodies. But I'd be hard pressed to call it minimal when it is so thick and rich. Smoky dub echoes, clicks-n-cuts electro percussions, and dark, deep throbbing basslines, oh my!

The vocalists are both men and women, and the lyrics are simple, suggestive, and delivered with sultry gusto. Mr. Delay seems to be able to really use his eponymous effect well on vocals (in traditional, old-school dub the echo effect is used to its greatest emotional effect when it is used on vocals).

Man this record is awesome. I am so happy to hear it, to hear heady electronic music experimentation applied with real passion and libido - instead of simply with cold purpose or mocking intent. This may be the record that finally teaches all of you who hate all house or hate all vocals just how incredibly wrong you really are.