LAL – Dark Beings – 2019

This product is currently out of stock and unavailable.

SKU: N/A Category:

On Bandcamp

DARK BEINGS, the 6th album from the electronic duo LAL, Toronto’s mix of
immigrant Barbadian, West-Indian, Straight cis Blackman nerd meets Brampton/
Bangladeshi Queer weirdo, aka Nic and Rose. This album is continuation of their
2016 album FIND SAFETY.

The concept for this album was initially rooted in notions borrowed from new
thinking in diasporic futurities, anticipating a new horizon for LAL’s community of
racialized, Queer, Trans, mad, crip and marginalized peoples in a planet beyond ours.
Time is cyclical in the world of the album, and multiple generations exist in parallel
timelines, which converge at the moment of the album’s creation. But then they
realized that through their DO IT TOGETHER home and space, UNIT 2, that they were
already creating that world with amazing musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors,
playwrights, poets, community organizers and audiences who became friends.
‘In our madness, our sorrow, our joy, our resilience, we escape into timeliness
and multiple dimensions that allow us to transcend, beyond our words, our
thoughts, our bodies. Transcending, that’s what we’ve been doing’ Dark Beings,
is about this experience.

 

This album was heavily influenced by electronic music (hiphop, house and
techno) and LAL’s history which is about inclusitivioty and freedom. LAL
continues to create electronic music’s initial vision of creating spaces where
people come together to feel safer, dance, explore sexuality, take care
of each other, and collectively heal. ‘Dark Beings’ reflects the continued
resilience of our communities. LAL is also drawing from more experimental
sonic influences from a broad range of sources- such as ambient space noise
recorded by satellites. In bringing all these influences together, LAL wants to
create an ethereal soundscape reverberating with cosmic harmonies.
The cover work was created by friends and artists Syrus Marcus Ware, inspired
by the photo taken by Calvin Hudson Hwang, and designed by typotherapy. Dark
Beings was mixed by Jim Anderson (Cold Specks), and mastered by Jedi Mastering.
Nic’s brother, Phen Ray, produced the songs Momentary Feelings and Stay Right,
featuring “Ajah UK’s Yorkshire born Muslim Lesbian” Jaheda Choudhury-Potter.
These 8 songs are magic in the number, magic in the people who dreamt it,
magic in the community who show up, magic in the way we try. We are Magic.