Posted on: July 22, 2014 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Tom Vek returned with his third album Luck. Detuned guitars, looped up drums, lackadaisical vocal delivery and orphaned electronic noises all mix together to make up the sound of Luck, out now.  It’s an album full of his typical pseudo-existential sloganeering, offering few answers to the rhetoric questions.  Cautionary tales mix with apparent declarations of vulnerable romanticism, angry warnings and bouts of depression-squashing mantras.  Overall it’s an optimistic atmosphere, melody and grooves over melancholy for melancholy’s sake, and oddly catchy.

“I play all the instruments to a basic level, enough to explore something enough to be surprised with an outcome, this includes the computer as an instrument, so it’s like Pro Tools garage-rock I guess.”

Londoner Tom Vek studied design at Central Saint Martins before his self-produced music was picked up by an independent label and subsequently licensed through a major, 2005’s “We Have Sound” and 2011’s “Leisure Seizure” were examples of how ambitious a lo-fi rock hybrid could sound. Luck is being released with highly respected London independent Moshi Moshi, Tom and the label go back to the early days of his career, and there’s good vibes there.

Rough around the edges, but held together just enough, the cracks in the music’s veneer lets you in to the recording and writing process. It’s all part of what interests him, not to present something perfect, but to explore the relationship between a DIY punk ethic and accessible song-writing. Will a wider audience get it, who knows, maybe that’s down to luck.

Luck LP Tracklisting

1. How Am I Meant To Know
2.  Sherman (Animals In The Jungle)
3.  Broke
4. Pushing Your Luck
5. 
Ton Of Bricks
6. Trying To Do Better
7. The Girl You Wouldnʼt Leave For Any Other Girl
8.  A Mistake
9. Youʼll Stay
10. The Tongue Avoids The Teeth
11. Letʼs Pray

Leave a Comment