Wagon Christ – Toomorrow

Luke Vibert's Wagon Christ project has been ploughing a deceptively narrow furrow for well over a decade now. It's a breezy, upbeat sound: jazzy breaks, trippy melodic loops and an endless array of samples are all deployed in pursuit of the liquid groove; the feeling that life might not actually be such a heavy proposition after all. It's ironic then that a music built upon aggressive eclecticism should now feel so predictable.

At this stage in his career Vibert is clearly able to sequence loops in his sleep and that sounds like his MO for much of the record – a kind of autopilot slickness that attempts to mask its dearth of inspiration with dead-eyed playfulness and frustratingly mild-mannered funk. Toomorrow does transcend the sum of its parts often enough to make it a worthwhile listen, but only the most undemanding listener would believe that Vibert has put his heart and soul into this work. [Mark Shukla]