Luomo – Vocalcity

Originally built to generate joy and dancefloor bliss, by the late 1990s house music had begun to broaden its emotional range. Alongside expressions of love, devotion, glee, and eruption, producers started working with fear, heartbreak, anger, and indignation. Few tracks tapped melancholia like Luomo’s “Tessio.” A syrupy, slow house song, “Tessio” and others on the 2000 album Vocalcity, which collects a trio of 12-inch singles into one triple-LP set, move with minor key momentum as if the midnight were for wallowing. “I guess you turn me on,” sings the unnamed female vocalist to open the track, an expression of ambivalence as cruel as it is cutting. “I guess you made me warm,” she continues later as a wobbly house rhythm moves in oblong space. Sounding like sped-up J Dilla jams, each of the six 20-odd minute tracks on the 3-LP set of Vocalcity moves with a kind of push-and-pull, expressing determination – but with a touch of hesitation. – Randall