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Planet Roll

Wagon Christ

7/10

'Planet Roll' is legendary musician Luke Vibert's return to his 'Wagon Christ' alias on the De:tuned label, his newest since 'Recepticon' in 2020. The Wagon Christ alias is usually reserved for Vibert's Trip-Hop tracks, which have a distinct blend of downtempo, funky drums with old cartoon samples which make you feel like you're Marvin The Martian on Acid - and this record is no different.

The cover is wholly welcome, being another piece by Celyn Brazier - who's art I feel fits Wagon Christ perfectly. I particularly liked their art on 'Toomorrow', but as always from them, the art on this cover is eyecandy.

The music itself is classic Wagon Christ fun, being old cheesy samples mixed with smooth synths and great beats. This album was thoroughly fun throughout and is a great addition to Wagon Christ's discography.

Some of the tracks reuse samples from previous albums, which is pretty amusing for a first listen if you're well-immersed in Wagon Christ's music. Though with the 16 tracks, it can sometimes get a bit rehash-y (along with directly sampling previous albums like 'Boy Zero' sampling from 'Special Designer Song' from Recepticon. I felt these were a bit less memorable than I had hoped - but saying this invalidates the album is far from the truth, and this is mostly just nit-picky. A lot of the songs on this release brought the distinguished amusement and joy I come back to Wagon Christ for.

Though I won't go through every track in detail, I quite liked 'Snatch' at the start of the album, it reminds me a lot of the sound on his older LP 'Musipal'(Which I got on wax for £12, what a steal!). The track 'Supagroovy's' title doesn't lie, I just happen to really like the playful synth throughout! 'THIS' was a pretty jarring jump to DnB, maybe similar to something he'd have on his 'Plug' alias - but it's fun, uses silly samples and has its place in the album. Another great moment was the acid line in the rather abtly titled 'Acid', which at the start sounded fairly uninteresting, but the beat kicking in phrases the line completely differently, and it suddenly becomes a huge groove! (Though there wasn't quite as much variation in the sound as I had hoped, maybe the knobs on his TB-303 broke off?), still, fuckin' excellent Acid House! 'Style' towards the end of the LP brought a big grin on my face in particular, and is probably my favourite off this release. It's pretty clear Vibert still has his genius in sampling - which is what initally drew me into his Wagon Christ alias, and I'm glad to see his new releases still ooze with creativity.

I would've loved to pick this album up on vinyl - but I only discovered it 3 days after the limited copies could be ordered, so it's all sold out sadly. It's around ~£25 on Discogs, including a hefty shipping fee if you're not from around Belgium, for any of those who want to pick it up.

It's a great, groovy, sampled-filled (as always) shining new album from Wagon Christ, take a listen to it!