As the glittering centers of globalized capitalism slowly teeter and rot from within, partners Antye Greie (AGF) and Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay/Luomo) arrive with an album that syncs up well with these dark days. Symptoms is a soundtrack for an anxious, cold cityscape and the apprehensive, frigid people within, even kicking off with a peel of thunder. "Downtown Snow," with the refrain "Look, don't touch / Listen don't talk" and lines like "Perfect war, perfect phone, absence of lust" chronicles a certain sickness. And, based on the bulk of the lyrics here, there doesn't seem to be a cure forthcoming. "We eat the same shit / We shit the same color" certainly isn't about togetherness.
Disconnection is a potent theme in this anti-utopian dance music, whether it's physical distance, social anxiety or existential pain. "I am no longer following the concept of empathy," runs throughout the dissonant synths of "Outbreak." Lyrics like "Who owns my connection to you?" from "Connection," suggest emotional turmoil and incongruity, but with the mechanized, industrial beats percolating throughout the album, it wouldn't be a stretch to look at it as a statement about privacy in the internet age.
The music is industrial, but not in the genre sense. It's literally mechanical, filled with small clicks, breaking glass, the hiss of gaseous exhaust and the static and shrill beeps of a carrier signal. It's too expertly sculpted and layered to be called merely cold, though. Like AGF's work with Ellen Allien on Sool and her own Dance Floor Drachen, there's a sense of echoing space on Symptoms. Sound dissipates and decays into a vacuum.
That Symptoms moves at a noticeably quicker march forward than the duo's previous and more mellow album, Explode, only heightens the anxiety. It's when the group is at its most urgent, like opener "Get Lost," that they draw the most out of this dark template. Slower songs, like "Second Life," tend to drag and highlight a limited vocal range. Or maybe the message just makes more sense with a bit more passion and anger behind it.
Tracklist: AGF/Delay - Symptoms
01. Get Lost
02. Connection
03. Downtown Snow
04. Outbreak
05. Bulletproof
06. Generic
07. Congo Hearts
08. Most Beautyull
09. Symptoms
10. Smileaway
11. Second Life
12. In Cycles
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