This is the second instalment in a trilogy of albums. This is a serious attempt at art or should I say an attempt at serious art? The cover tells me to WAKE UP! Because ART KILLS! OK I’m listening already but do you mind if I pretend to be asleep? We don’t have time here for the whole music as art debate here (shame) so my first thought is that this music makes for a useful addition to the avant garde. It is an instrumental mix of analog type keyboard pulses and stabs, live lo-fi drums and distorted effects and because it is fairly minimal they fit/clash together really well. It’s all perfectly listenable or unlistenably perfect depending on your take on the avant garde.
Iscariot is the contemplative centre piece of the album. Distorted and orchestral swells of keyboard carry the listener down a sodden alleyway where they find a lone figure clanking the metal fire escape with absent-mindedly picked up piping. When not being contemplative this album tends towards punky (not Punk) noise. Because of its instrumental nature to my mind the album fits neatly into the soundtrack genre albeit a 70’s futuristic(!?) dystopian one. John Carpenter keyboards and industrial clank being the order of the day.
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In the lead up to Iscariot we have the pulsing buzz of opener Dawning, the out of synch rhythmic chaos of Macedonia and the robotic, blooping, kitsch in synch drama of Stuttercrow. Afterwards comes the man and keyboard synthesis that is Dusking, the faster velocity crush of Zakula and a re-imagined version of Macedonia(n) by the man who mastered the album, James Plotkin.
Imagine a less organised, less tuneful and more minimal ADD N to X and you may be somewhere close to the cold blue world of Lid EMBA, a world where you can only be awoken by hot rocks on your eyes. An interesting album and an artist worthy of further investigation.
Lid Emba online
Stickfigure Records online
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