After years of steadily developed underground hype, Brixton's multi-hyphenate Wu-Lu finally releases his debut album, Loggerhead, coming by way of the seminal experimental imprint, Warp Records.
A genuinely eclectic LP directly speaking to the multitude of troubles our current moment sees, Loggerhead requires multiple listens to fully ingest and appreciate its subdued narrative. A genre-fluid post-punk-screamo-hip-hop melange across twelve tracks, Loggerhead is as inspired by DJ Shadow as it is Slipknot. An anthemic, intense soundtrack to modern urban life, Loggerhead traverses through mood and emotion, those being the Zoloft-necessitating trifecta of anxiety, guilt, and fear.
The artist, otherwise known as Miles Romans-Hopcraft, has been prepping the release of Loggerhead since 2021's acclaimed single South, complete with a Black Lives Matter protest-shot video and urgent lyrics like I used to live in south London / There's not much of it left. Other two singles Times, and Broken Homes, also teased the album on through the summer of 2022 with the blistering single Blame - an existential breakdown of the inner monologue It was all barking at me / I couldn't see my team, teeming with hyperactive distortion and glitchy machinations.
'Blame' set the stage nicely for the sonic vibes and accompanying visual aesthetics of second single, 'Scrambled Tricks'. Inspired by classic horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Clockwork Orange, the single and terrifying video for Scrambled Tricks is not one for the coulrophobes (fear of clowns). Nevertheless, its game of life expose traverses the space between manipulation and deception - the true faces of society when the pressure's on.
Each track seemingly riffs off the album's official debut single, Ten, which sees a guest verse from North London's Lex Amor. More controlled than that disheveled Blame, Ten is nonetheless riddled with darkness, albeit as damning screams give way to a steady climax. For me, the mental-health maintaining Léa Sen duet Calo Paste offers a rare moment of detached respite from reality, providing a particular thematic highlight of Loggerhead.
Loggerhead is clearly a product of the fertile creativity found in his native South London neighborhood, where everything from drill to jazz emanates from venues, cafes, cars, and speakers across the area. It is a powerful example of musical self-expression and the possibilities of an artist undisturbed by industry protocol, yet fully so by the changes going on right outside his window.
There are more collaborations on Loggerhead, too, as the likes of Greentea Peng, Asha Lorenz, Amon, Mica Levi, Black Midi's Morgan Simpson, and more appear, allowing the collaborative approach necessary for a worthwhile future society to add to its respective reflections. As Loggerhead opens with the ominously prophetic Take Stage, and "Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true," Wu-Lu's themes of exasperation sets the anti-gentrification ethos of the entire thing. As clearly mentioned in South, "Priced out, forced change, more rent to pay" is all you need to know.
Wu-Lu performs live at Control Club on Friday, November 11, 2022
