After dropping Spectacular back in 2023, Toronto duo LAL — Nicholas Murray and Rosina Kazi — are back with a new project, enlisting some local familiar faces for a collaborative remix project titled Self Defence.
Out now, the album culls the talents of Lee Paradise, OBUXUM, Rae Spoon, G.R. Gritt, SlowPitchSound and more, forming a 12-track body of work that "tell[s] inconclusive stories and force us to rethink our habits of assembly," according to Toronto poet Farhia Tato.
Hear Self Defence in full below, where you'll also find the full statement from Tato.
To approach LAL's Self Defence album, you have to put a step between yourself and literal meaning. Their collaborators' lyrics & delivery form their own universe. The album's greatest skill is its ability to bring new sounds into the environment to devastating effect. The songs tell inconclusive stories and force us to rethink our habits of assembly.
Let us tread on your untouchable sacred ground
To be forged by,
To be saluted by,
To struggle in,
What a march
Of people's congresses
To come
Together we would
put power in fields,
Not missiles
Together we would
give respect to god,
and not dollars
Even the soil
shall sing praise songs
We can discover the pride
of indigenity,
covered by the sand dunes
of exploitation
covered by the sand dunes
of colonialism
the people, we are
the pillar of the universe
shall we now lead the world
and deliver the world
from its hunger,
from poverty
— of minerals
— of morals
— and of love
