Mysterious producer, equally enigmatic EP
Who He?
From the shadowy world of the Old Apparatus collective, Bristol producer LTO first broke ranks in 2013 to work with rapper Mowgli as Khing Kang King. Now he’s popped up again with his second solo EP, ‘No Pasa Nada’.
Why LTO?
He’s been compared to Autechre. Do you need any other reasons? Seriously though, his work is all about using distorted and disguised found sounds and field recordings to create totally immersive soundscapes that stand up as great tracks at the same time. It’s brilliant stuff. Is that a waterfall? The pounding of machinery or processed beats? We don’t know – and it sounds so good, we don’t really care.
‘No Pasa Nada’ really whirrs along. It ticks, it pounds, it crashes. It’s only four titles long, but size isn’t everything: this is an intense, atmospheric record that builds a strange landscape around you as you listen, shifting as the elements of each track synchronise and fall apart again. At times, it feels like LTO is trying to lasso that waterfall and drag it into place, but the found sounds and samples always get the better of him and run free throughout the record.
Tell Us More
LTO specialises in blurring the line between the organic and the mechanic: you get natural sounds contrasted with industrial breakbeats, bound together by fragmented piano melodies. A lot of the sounds on ‘No Pasa Nada’ were recorded on backpacking trips to South America, but it’s not just Latin influences you’ll find here. There are glimpses of modern classical, grime, dubstep, even post-rock. Here’s hoping for a full album hot on the heels of this gem of an EP.
‘No Pasa Nada’ is out on Injazero Records
