WL//WH Review INCIRRINA “Lip Led Scream” LP
Incirrina live at Death Disco club, Athens
On August 19, 2022, the long-awaited new album ‘Lip Led Scream’ by the Athens (GR) based duo Incirrina was revealed publically through Cold Transmission Music (Germany); a record that was already in my hands about a month before its official release but I had to keep silent not to spoil the band’s and the label’s plans, and also because I was on tour with a theater in GR without any time to write anything at all. I only gave a shout to Fabrizio “You’ll be impressed, my brother, Incirrina are coming with a Grand new album”, and as if sensing what was to come, he did an extensive, full interview with the band on August 17. I am sure that also the German label heard what I heard in their new album and offered them a contract and a night to remember in Cologne during their Cold Transmission Festival 2022….Incirrina played live on the release date of their by-far best and obviously most important record so far.
Irini Tini (synthesizers, vocals), and George Katsanos (synthesizers, drum machine, vocals) teamed up again with their long-time partner Konstantinos Londos (lyrics) and jumped into the Zero Gravity Studios (Athens) for what would become a special and very creative adventure. Ι am saying this because I know that both Irini and George are two very skilled musicians and music teachers and when I saw on their Bandcamp page that the owner of the studio Dimitris Dimitriadis not only did the sound recordings and the mixing but also offered them vocal treatments I went like “Whaaat, reaaallyyy, to Incirrina?!”, all that started to clearly unveil as I began paying more and more attention to their new work. Here, in “Lip Led Scream” LP the band tried a little more different things on their already complicated musing and how true to themselves were to seek somebody to “unlock” them in their already trademark darkwave stream – brave and true!!! The new record has 8 new songs plus 2 more that are drawn from their first “experiment” with Cold Transmission Music, the ‘UTTER‘ release (2020) with “Shrapnel Words” and “Dance Of The Dark”.
Their minimal, analog, darkwave art create for the screen by Nikos Chantzis (Press Eject and Give me the Tape), here again with the first official video from the new album and for the song “Careworn Face”. Some things in Incirrina‘s music are now sounding like a leap ahead from their own old station. And if it was their first “8.15” EP (2018) that shed some light on the band, this new album is the record that shines bright on their name.
Incirrina’s music is dark, sometimes very dark, and beautiful, sometimes tempting, and exciting, sometimes challenging, and always, but always, with quite commanding results that always, but always, demand my attention. I like her voice, I like the way she sings their passions, and I like the way she is treating her analog keyboards as I also like so much his input and his presence in their music by her side. Incirrina (like also Gey Gallows, Paradox Obscur, Misfortunes, Ghostland, Mechanimal, New Zero God, and Marva Von Theo) is the reason and the clarity why apart from us (the locals) there is a broad community out there, all of them on the dark alternative front, that is looking to the starry darkness of our scene with great interest and query. ‘Lip Led Scream’ is full of groovy dark winds all over, full of interest, and a really profound record. Look what I found in the press release;…“Our lips felt tightly closed. We wanted to scream, to turn scream into an expression not just as a way out but as a way to understand. To react against but also to respond to a feeling of internal chaos, helplessness, and fear of a world collapsing outside. Solitude, violence, despair, social injustice, biopolitics, but also love, humaneness, and coming of age are the main themes of the album”.
I won’t guide you through this record anymore. It doesn’t need mine or anyone else’s quills to understand it better, only that; you will find amazing tunes in it that can (and will) shape your mood, that will make you feel angry, and that will make you emotional like the last song “My Only Land” which is the only song with lyrics by Incirrina alone. Do you know that they recently became parents to their first child? Go ahead and listen to it loud and catch or read the lyrics of this anthemic song and then choose your poisons from the rest of this grand record.
You can have it in Digital format, CD, Cassette, or Vinyl!!!
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Written by Loud Cities’ Mike
