- "It's OK / To fuck all day," sings Barbara Markey on "It's Alright," a track whose moral compass points to the nearest red light district. It's much less clear what's being said on "Weirdshit Xu Paelk," the A-side of Lipelis Edits, which samples a Thai folk song and braids the babbling vocal around staccato Prince funk and steady skin percussion rolls. Neither of which sound at all related to "Rumours" and its cheeseball yacht rock balladry. Leonid Lipelis's collaborative L.I.E.S. debut is strange, fucked up and one of my favourite records of the year.
The black label series from L.I.E.S. releases dance floor oddities now and again—SPSS's Latin boogie freakout "Bigote," for instance—but there's nothing that matches the sheer cheek of Lipelis Edits. Much of the EP's source material ranges from whimsical to quixotic, but when Lipelis waves a wand over "Weirdshit Xu Paelk" and "It's Alright" (with help from Simple Symmetry and Holkin respectively), it turns both into devastating dance records. On the former, warbled vocals are warped into a drunk, doughy lullaby that wanders over hand drums and splashing disco snares. "It's Alright," on the other hand, comes off like a Dinosaur L track gorged on cowbells, whistles, 303 squelches and Markey's salacious come-ons. Sandwiched between those two is "Rumours," whose unvarnished romantic strains yearn for a Top Gun love scene. It's completely out of place, but on an EP that doesn't care about where things fits, it couldn't be more at home.
TracklistA1 Weirdshit Xu Paelk feat. Simple Symmetry
B1 Rumours feat. Emotional Blackmail
B2 It’s Alright feat. Holkin