Description
LAWA – Manipulation (col. LP)
“The soundtrack to your electronic nightmare!
There are places, they say, best left unexplored. Temples of darkness, ziggurats of gloom, resting places for those desperate souls whose essences have not fully departed this mortal plane…Who knows what awful secrets lurk there, deep in the black places of the Earth?
LAWA know. For their latest round of releases on the always forward-looking Cineploit label, the duo of Austrian mega-synthesists Alain Leonard and Alex Wank access realms as yet unseen by human eyes. Expanding on their previous records’ diet of soundtrack-heavy electronics and percussive mayhem, “Manipulation” and sister album “Instrumentalization” dive headfirst into the
deep end of techno darkness, taking the listener on a one-way trip into unknown dimensions of industrial, malevolent horror. Listen. Listen closely.
You will find yourself running, panic-stricken, through skyscraper canyons and waste-strewn alleys, pursued by nameless, faceless automatons.
You will stand within far-distant hidden cities, cowering from the impossible shadows that form among those twisted architectures.
You will sleep; and, aeons later, awake, somehow fundamentally altered from the person you once were.
You will transcend time.
You will, at the last, cheat death.
And, unsure of whether your perceptions are to be trusted, you will listen to this music…and listen again. Do you dare?
On to practical matters. On previous LAWA records our intrepid explorers reinterpreted newly-excavated reverberations and resonances from the dustier reaches of the celluloid world. And here again, as ever, the influence of the Italian Masters looms strong. Reanimating the festering remains of Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and Riz Ortolani might, in some quarters, be frowned upon as somehow disturbing the natural cycle of existence. But there is music yet to be discovered within the legacy of those enigmatic souls. Not all ghosts bear malice. Some wish it to be known that the fruit of their endeavours tastes as succulent as ever. Would it not be impolite to refuse the offer?
And bear witness. “Manipulation” and “Instrumentalization” are presented as a compound organism of music and visuals, distinct and seemingly-incompatible elements intertwined like poison ivy. The artwork for these twin offerings was conceived and developed by one Thomas Zackl, designer extraordinaire and the visual genius behind many past Cineploit releases. In the art deco stylings of Herr Zackl’s illustrations we can see the perfect symmetry of sound and light, of dread and hope. These figures may be you, or your loved ones – or, if your fortune
deserts you, they may depict the likeness of your ultimate nemesis. Look into the mirror of this music and find out…
And finally, a vital question. Do the men of LAWA know what they have wrought? Do they perceive their compositions the same way others do, as a medium for channelling that which the cautious may shy away from in fear and trepidation? Perhaps not. Perhaps, in the crepuscular, myceloid dusk they inhabit, they are merely humming along to the music of the cosmos, the eternal tolling of a vast, all-encompassing bell. Disturb them at your peril!”
(MATT THOMPSON)
