UN CADDIE RENVERSÉ DANS L’HERBE

Atlas saltA (maps lies, border lies …)

3” CD, Dekorder

However did the world turn out to be such a  complicated place? From the powers that be to the elitist rulers which could also be the mass of consumers, the number of ideologies, philosophies, powerstruggles and timebombs (not to speak of cultural and personal lifestyles) has accumulated into a complex frenzy of information and if there is a single person on earth still able to look through all these million kinds of shit in detail, I am willing to vote him or her president of the planet. The other way out has always been blending out what doesn’t fit your mindset or what is impossible to be processed in due time. That doesn’t mean ignoring the problems of the world, but more or less being able to live from day to day with despairing completely. In the meantime focus tends to turn towards a single issue or a bunch of interconnected issues and the willingness to find a solution in there is great and satisfying in the beginning, but also frustrating in the long run. The Buddhists try to solve the problem by ignoring all of this. Hm, interesting, but where does this long-winded introduction lead us to in regards to “Atlas saltA”.

Of course, maps are lies. But so is money and passports and visa and the agreement to not kill each other over nothing. We agree upon these things because, well of course, because everyone does, and it is the system. If you consider the fact, that our world runs on the agreement that certain slips of paper are worth a certain amount of goods and that the way these credits are handled has been researched to be analogous to game-rules, you might as well get the screaming shakes. The world depending on rules made up to be a gigantic game of monopoly! And nobody offering to call it quits. Jeez, I’ll give it up.

This is the third record of Didac P. Larriga on Dekorder to date and it is the most open political one but also maybe his most playful yet monosyllabic one. Basically his style hasn’t changed a lot from “Now there’s a weird taste in my mouth” or “like a packed cupboard but quite …”. Of course, the vocals on track 2 and 6 are easily recognized as an innovation, but there is more to it. Larriga has left his ambling pace and dreamy worldview for a more intense and pressed atmosphere. A sense of urgency seems to creep up here and there, especially when listening noise flutes (I never would have thought I’d ever have the two words “noise” and “flute” in one sentence together) on track one to the almost high-speed folk dance “miss” (track 4) or the fairground or carousel’ sound on “atlas” (track 6). Gives you the feeling that something is about to end, almost like at the end of a movie when the pace of the action starts to speed up.

Moreover it seems to me that more machine-like or (pre-)industrial tones have found their way into the music. There are spinning wheels of hand-operated small machinery, the spray of water on concrete, the serially disrupted percussiveness of a broken workflow. On this 3inch the pace seems less that of a lazy walk on a Sunday afternoon along the beach, but rather the hazy stumble of someone in a slight hurry on a rainy citystreet in the afternoon. The size of the sounds has inflated a little, the atmosphere become more urban. But all of these might just be minor changes in real life and they only come from my overwrought and hyperactive imagination, because after all there is still the same softness and withdrawal from the (modern western) world, the production of sounds and songs on their own terms, the same lively jingle and jangle of sounds.

The names of the titles in succession read “When” “time” “overcomes” “miss” “liar” “atlas” and that is much more than a pious hope. The artwork is a rendition of another global map with Africa still intact in the middle but the rest of the world different. Now I’ll take some time off to think about what the world would be like, if the world was different in many ways.