In the Internet age, we have been able to observe two very distinct trends/schools of thought among musicians. There’s those artists who truly believe that everything has already been said and done in music, and who stick to the basic rules of assigned genres because of it, and then there’s those who see that statement, go ‘eh, fuck it‘, and gleefully throw a bunch of styles and elements into the blender just to see what might come of it. You may now take an educated guess as to what category Leipzig, Germany-based experimental pop/noise rock trio Lingua Nada fall into. Go on, I’ll wait. If your answer was ‘the latter’, then congratulations – you guessed correctly!
Formed in 2015, this wonderfully weird outfit has devoted itself to the creation of wonderfully weird and abstract, yet uniquely catchy tunes by means of fusing many different styles of alternative music. Noise rock, psychedelia, math rock, indie – you name it, and chances are Lingua Nada have already used trace elements of it in at least one of their songs. Their début album Snuff, which was released just last year, was an enjoyable introduction to their world, but apparently they are already set to move onward, both in terms of actual new music being written/recorded and regarding the stylistic vision for said material. Today, Everything Is Noise is proud to present the band’s latest single “Salam Cyber”, which comes with a fancy music video no less!
‘Are You Online?‘
To me, this song represents a welcome step towards accessibility, without sacrificing any of the quirks that made Lingua Nada so endearing in the first place. The fittingly titled “Salam Cyber” opens with autotuned vocals and a certain familiar tropical vibe that has been all the rage among hip-hop and r’n’b artists for a good while now, although both are met with a slightly unsettling background touch of math rock, twisting the glossy sounds back into a much grittier direction. It’s almost like someone brought together bands like Yeasayer, Tera Melos, and Bilderbuch to jam out a track together. This dichotomy carries on throughout the song’s runtime, becoming more intense as things progress, and is reflected in the accompanying music video as well. Combining elements of vaporwave and cyberpunk aesthetics, strikingly colorful computer-rendered imagery of the band performing is spliced into a live action storyline, which revolves around a young man in a Moroccan village, whose data is stolen in his sleep by shadowy figures dressed in traditional Arabian garments.
Both musically and visually, this single and music video combo manages to paint a picture of Lingua Nada as a stylistically restless band that’s never content to rest on their laurels. Instead of simply reheating what proved to be a working formula on Snuff, they boldly ventured into a new direction with “Salam Cyber”. Hopefully this courageous musical spirit will be just as present on the rest of the new material they recorded earlier this year – I for one can’t wait to hear what they came up with, especially after this impressive first glance! You can stay in touch with Lingua Nada by following them on Facebook; make sure to check out their back catalogue on Bandcamp as well. In case you want to know what these guys are able to deliver in the live setting, I suggest checking out this live session of theirs we premiered back in September.
