The ghost in Lena's machine has possessed it's share of echo chambers and mixing boards - it was there long ago during the delirious sessions at The Ark, where Monsieur Perry would taunt it's spirit with a fearless and
life-affirming Caribbean insouciance; it's been there when Adrian Sherwood would unexpectedly lunge
toward the console and let fly with a slide of the volume fader; it's been a vital element in the steaming,
bubbly, concoctions found in the Mad Professor's laboratory, and more recently, it's inhabited the tiny
slivers of runoff vinyl that regroup and metamorphosize into Pole's macro/microcosmic wallowings.
Mathias Delplanque AKA Bidlo and Lena has given in to the more radical side of his Bidlo audio persona, emerging from some very haunted studio sessions as Lena a sort of idiot savant twin to Bidlo - more intuitive and viscerally receptive to the dub ghost than Bidlo. The center of Lena's universe of sound is a sonic black hole of infra-bass from which sound particles manage to
frenetically escape, spiraling off into the cosmos in a frenetic rhythm, leaving trails of white light and buzzing noises which soar past the listener.
Lena's first release, "Lane" was a denser affair, not unlike a jungle's ecosystem. On this new record he pairs
thing down to the sweet minimalism and groovy melancholy of deep space, whilst remaining ever mindful of the universal constant that African music taps into. Suffice to say, it's complex, despite it's sonic
immediacy. Like Bidlo, Lena continues to play live, both as a solo performer and improvising with other musicians. A recent show opening for Adrian Sherwood found the ghost in his laptop enjoying the broad
daylight and haunting more than a few festivalgoers.
Tap into the spirit yourself, and if you like what you've
heard, tell the others.