CD – Lom

Now available on the shelves of Bandcamp is an anthological release focused on the multiform productions of VooDooMan. The album has been released under the trademark Lom, a Slovakian experimental label focused on postmusic and new art. This is a retrospective of the creative efforts of this East-European electronic underground music enfant terrible, a manipulator very experienced in glitch aesthetics, DIY and circuit bending. The selection is large and covers a long period; in spite of this, the recordings present a recognizable style, filled with special effects and echoes, some harsh noises, naïf melodies and some alien-sounding passages. It’s a hypnotic environment and not by chance defined by the author as a kind of “anti-dimension”. The project is a 14-track web-release and a DVD that includes the complete discography of VooDooMan (9 albums). The “physical” edition also includes some radio and video podcasts: it’s a very eclectic and “neo-dadaist” proposal that alternately presents hyperbolic synths, recordings of phone calls, feedback, bleeps, Tibetan bells and proto-hipster acoustic ballads. There are atmospheres typical of the “Cabaret Voltaire”, the seminal work by Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, and many odd titles – for example “ black supremacy in the anal gas chamber”. Here, however, the irritating amalgam of penitential frequencies and praiseful proclamations destabilizes even the most specialized listeners, moving everything towards a sense of the impossibility of verbal expression and an underlying ironical attitude towards content. The settings are quite dark and there are also post-industrial strains, whose fruition definitely required a lot of work. But if you are prepared to let go, there is a fuzzy and intriguing dimension to plunge into here.