A few years have passed since 2015. And a lot has changed. At that time, for example, the AfD was not haunted in the Bundestag, Trump populism was not yet booming and the biggest virus plague was a remote epidemic called Ebola. Today we write the year 2021 and catch the pessimist in us, as this short leap in time has a rather unpleasant aftertaste from today’s perspective. Fortunately, the time span was not long enough to maneuver us as humanity to the end of any civilization – but what would it look like?
The band Aloa Input for her part, found enough time between 2016 and 2020 to get to the bottom of this question in no less than 50 songs. This also gave birth to the supergroup’s third album for indie nerds, called “Devil’s Diamond Memory Collection”. The compilation contains twelve tracks that tell their own story from an alienated future. In the retrospective, humans are peeled out as their own boss. A species that knows how to defeat itself, but sometimes gets away with a black eye. Whether it is a happy ending, for example, to flee from his mother planet remains to be seen. In any case, human and computer voices alike state the last line of the album as the last line of the song:
the universe keeps a lot of places to go.
So much for the teaser for the extremely exciting storytelling of the concept album about posthumanism and the singularity of technologies, always vacillating between utopia and dystopia. On a musical level, the album also seems extremely mature and made of one piece. Or to fall straight into the house with the door: it is just as strong as a buck! When the leaderboards are rolled around towards the end of the year and this album has flown under the radar, a rant about it will be published again here on Neølyd, that much is promised. The degree of maturity of “Devil’s Diamond Memory Collection” should allow the shoes of The Notwist or New Weird Bavaria bubble to outgrow and Aloa Input to finally become an institution.
While the two really great previous albums “Anysome” and “Mars etc.” were still recognizable as a hodgepodge of different genre influences, quasi an audible playground of previously untried styles for the three band members, the third disc now comes up with a solid sound image. All in all, it’s a bit slower and darker, but still less cerebral than it used to be. The strengths of each individual musician in the trio come into their own better than ever before. The beat and effect fiddling by Cico Becks (Joasihno, The Notwist) harmonizes perfectly with the songwriting Florian Kreiers (Angela Aux) and the common (speaking) singing with Marcus Grassl (formerly Missent to Denmark). Overall, the result is an experimental pop with a timeless musical note, which is likely to work less well in playlists, but unfolds an impressive pull on the turntable in 42 minutes and is absolutely suitable for everyday use in its balanced basic mood.
In addition to the singles “Desert Something” and “Make It Rain” already presented, an open tape from Aloa Input can also be found at Neølyd. An urgent recommendation for everyone who wants to look a bit further into the heads of the band members or who just can’t get enough of the context of the incredibly good “Devil’s Diamond Memory Collection”.
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