Review: Lum – Urpillay

I don't know if Damian Lazurus has gone mad or is trolling us, or if I'm just completely losing any sense of what constitutes good dance music, but this new release from Lazurus's Crosstown Records offshoot Rebellion is the kind of ethno-house duffer that's as appealing as the stink of spilt bong water.

According to the PR, LUM is a 'medicine man' becuase he's spent some time in Tulum. I'm a bit unsure of this – would someone be an 'archbishop' because they'd hung out in Canterbury? Anyway, being a medicine man apparently means you stick some panpipes over house and hope for the best. The end result is five tracks of faux 'mystical' ballbag, where LUM's endless spirituality is wearyingly signposted by 'ethnic' percussion, lumbering, portentous synth lines and lifeless dub plug-ins. This is music for the hippy jetset, people who like to illustrate their beautiful, eternal spirit by dancing shoeless, safe in the knowledge that a pedicure is just round the corner. I don't know. I'm probably just a hater.