The discipline of sound design has been around since before the dawn of the talkies, but these days it refers to any number of things having to do with sonics (music, soundtracks, live theater production, etc.) and includes artists such as Peder Losnegard, the Norwegian singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist better known as Lido. Lido’s recent past included a major-label career under the handle LidoLido and work as a producer and remixer for artists ranging from Alt-J and Banks to Kanye West and Chance The Rapper. Everything is his latest solo offering, something of a concept album that spotlights the impact zone of a particularly nasty breakup and, in its EDM way, is as punk rock as New York Dolls ever was, featuring the sort of over-the-top arrangements, muscular musicality and bloody-minded inventiveness that will blow most electro-peers into the ether. “Catharsis” is 2016’s glitchiest bit of 808s and heartbreak; “Citi Bike” opens with a flip-the-bird vocal pastiche only to zigzag its angrily drunken way to the dance floor; and “Murder” is Lido flexing his considerable musical chops for shock, awe and laughs. It probably wouldn’t have been Johnny Thunders’ jam, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be yours.
—Corey duBrowa
