Lenn9o9n – Relining Graves
download: Relining Coffins
Listen to Alli:
From the first time I heard Lenn9o9n cover The Beatles’ ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey’ I knew I was listening to something quite extraordinary. Everybody knows that the synthesizer maimed popular music in the 1980s, but here was somebody who might actually make you rethink electronic pop music completely. Not from choice, but necessity (think a 26 year old American travelling the globe with a keyboard strapped to his back, currently alighting in Italy), with the exception of impassioned vocals drenched in precision effects, electronic beats and synthetic melodies are the exclusive body of these songs, manipulated into something that somehow sounds completely organic. In a nutshell, Lenn9o9n makes synthesized music sound not only exciting, but also credible. It is the past colliding head on with the future, drawing on the same resources as all your favourite retro psych guitar bands of the 21st century, lo-fi gone hi-fi, The Killers without The Cure, The Strokes with substance, or even the Man himself if he he’d still been around, plugging the white piano into the wall while sparks fly from his fingertips.
‘Relining Coffins’ is literally the beginning. If you move in similar circles to me, then you’ll already have been blown away by Lenn9o9n tracks like ‘Ausdruck’ or ‘I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For’… only you’ll not find any of those songs here. As the title implies, this six-song EP is about revisiting songs that were previously recorded between 2007 and 2008 and reworking them. The results are a very likeable and worthwhile introduction to what Lenn9o9n is capable of as a musician and songwriter. Undoubtedly there is much more to come, but even so as a standalone concept record, ‘Relining Coffins’ does exactly what it needs to do and a whole lot more.
Opening track ‘Aren’t We All’ is a short atmospheric intro that leads into the really brilliant ‘Alli’ – a sonic pounding song with its chorus line of ‘She’s the girl who makes the boys cry/Or at least she’s the one who likes to try’. Of the six songs, it is arguably the most recognisably Lenn9o9n – catchy and atmospheric, a dark form of pop music. ‘A Bitterness In Your Heart’ is another short lullaby with a motivational speaking sample closing it out and leading into fourth track, the wonderfully electronic and psychedelic ‘Little Bird’ combining frantic vocal harmonies and Joy Division drums. Penultimate track ‘Love is the Curse’ is a meandering synth piano tune carrying a melancholic short song. Record closer ‘Fresh Start’ is probably my favourite of the six, the intricacy and fuzz of the arrangement escalating into life behind upbeat drums, swooping synth strings and telephonic vocals singing ‘We can start again.’ Very much a record of odd and even songs, or atmospherics and anthems, ‘Reling Coffins’ ebbs and flows like a little ocean, lullabying before crashing up on the beach of your ears, and repeating the process until the final sparkling notes of ‘Fresh Start’ fade away.
Looking back, this might not be the Lenn9o9n masterpiece, especially if a full-length record materialises towards the end of the summer (as promised). But then it was never intended to be a masterpiece, more an interesting experiment of trying to make something out of long buried tracks with new experience and techniques behind them. As an interesting experiment it undoubtedly exceeds all expectations. Tracks like ‘Alli’, ‘Little Bird; and ‘Fresh Start’ are immense bedroom anthems and so refreshingly different from everything else going on in the lo-fi music world right now; yet their immensity is not because they are different, but just because they sound so fucking good. Judging by this recent video:
you can expect to hear more than just keyboards on future releases, but for now at least after hearing this, you might just wonder if it really was synthesizers that maimed the 80s or simply the people who were operating them.
*Post-note: In no way do Quixodelic Records advocate synth-only recordings. Keyboards are dangerous machines in the wrong hands and for every Lenn9o9n there are countless 80s impersonators continuing to maim the ears of listeners today. Please exercise extreme caution if you feel inspired to follow in these electronic footsteps.
Okay, I really like that album and I’ve listened to it a handful of times in the past week but ‘nina’s paw is stuck’ is just what I needed. More please.
I just listened to this record and thoroughly enjoyed every second. I look forward to hearing more ….