Track Of The Day Graphic Latin
From the equatorial climate of Indonesia it’s not just twee, indie-pop and buoyant music, but as we learned with Ultraviolence and Cotswolds, an increasingly bunch of young bands experiment with cold and gloomy sounds pervaded with alienation, paranoia and pessimism, supported by few precious labels in totally pure DIY spirit.
Graphic Latin is the latest solo moniker of Bandung-based musician ???????????????????? ????. ????????????????????????????????, formerly one half of Knurd Hamsun and also Jacqués Ming and St. Ennui, who has just dropped his debut 4-track EP “Vatican Laundry” on digital and 30 Copies Printed Sleeve 3″ CDR via strictly independent label Heaven Punks.
The one-man band’s music amazingly harkens back to those, mainly European, obscure musicians of the DIY late 70s/80s underground, experimental DIY analog synth-laden scene typified by a homemade, raw, dark and minimal sound, often released on very limited cassettes, brought to light by archival compilations, the most well-known through US Minimal Wave Label and French Born Bad Records.
The equally unsettling and alluring “Graceful Rituals”, embued in robotically pulsating gritty and eerie synth coldness, is lit by thudding and hypnotic analog driving bass lines interacting with mechanical and pounding drum patterns haunted by swirls of bleak, glistening synth over distorted, hungry, begging, not always discernible, vocals swathed in reverberating angst and inequitable fear in the lost soul searching for redemption of an odd man out.
Although the artist seems to have a, I’d say natural, love/hate relationship with the result, “Vatican Laundry” is a promising and heartful debut of sheer minimal synth/wave craftsmanship
Check out the related video from few weeks ago, I personally missed:
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