Lumen Lab
They Are Killing Us
Tracklisting
1. Granola
2. No Education
3. Sin Gobierno
4. Radical
5. Wake Up
6. Compa
7. Force
8. Balas como autos 9. Sin Medios
10. Paraiso
Label
Aagoo Records
Format
CD/LP/Digital
Release Date
March 11 2016
Territory
Europe
Lumen lab is a project created by Diego Martínez in 2000. When he was fifteen, he surprised the electronic scene in Mexico (reserved then only to genres associated with dance music or late rave culture) with drum machines, secondhand synths and any device with which he could use to generate rhythmic noise and distortion. After two years of live performances linked to a post-industrial sound, Diego began to merge other influences such as glitch, the late nineties IDM and sounds associated to hip-hop and punk music. In 2004 the « enfant terrible of mexican electronic music » released his first album « Comiendo algodón en la pista de baile » (Eating cotton candy on the dance floor), published by the record label Abolipop in the boom of leftist electronic music in Mexico. It became one of the most important titles to strengthen a new scene more closely linked with experimentation.
One of the main features of Lumen lab since its inception, was the powerfull live acts: sets full of energy, rhythmic dislocations, amorphous synthesis and all kinds of noise collages. That was how Martinez scored listeners not only in Mexico but in countries in which he played live performances such as Colombia, Spain and England.
In 2006 the first album of his side avant-garde hip-hop project, Jack’s son, was released. Lumen lab presented his second work in 2009 under the name « Shhh!! » – also released by Abolipop – with greater force on his tracks and a more diverse palette of sounds and rhythms. It was a logical evolution after his first album.
Without pausing for a moment from his live acts, Diego began composing his third studio material for Lumen lab in 2013: « They Are Killing Us« .
The title pointed to the critical social, political and economic situation of Mexico, mainly the violence that has been unleashed against innocent people through organized crime and the government itself. It is dedicated to all friends, colleagues and the Mexican society in general, who live under the daily uncertainty of losing their lives in a country that can be considered at war. Musically, Lumen lab has implemented sonorities related to electro music, in its most bizarre form, of course, and has increased the influence of hardcore, a movement that perverted his ears since his childhood.
« They Are Killing Us » has several collaborations, including his brother Israel Martinez, a recognized sound and interdisciplinary artist. Both co-direct Abolipop and the digital publishing platform Suplex. For vocals, Chano collaborates. He was the voice of important bands of the crust and grindcore scene of Mexico in the nineties and the new millennium as Hydrophobia and Emphysema, besides collaborating with anarcho-punk bands like Fallas del Sistema.
« They Are Killing Us » is a convulsive and powerful work, the result of fifteen years of experimentation as Lumen lab and a social context that demands nothing less than a great energy and anger to get ahead, to preserve life, because they are killing us.
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