Lali Puna
Scary World Theory

THE REVIEW

If you happen to find yourself at the top of Park Guell in Barcelona, looking out over the city splendidly nestled between the sea and hills with three CDs in hand ("Deftones" by Deftones, "Noah's Ark" by Cocorosie, and "Scary World Theory" by Lali Puna), do not hesitate to insert the third one into your player. Valerie's voice will dig deep into you without any escape.

If it's your first time listening to this CD, do not start with the first song, "Nin-Com-Pop," although it's beautiful and engaging, but with "Don't Think," whose enveloping loops can certainly be regarded as the manifesto of this small electronic masterpiece. Then let your listening flow through "Scary World Theory," the title track, and you will taste the group's cold detachment and grandeur, starkly framed in the frost-scened opening of Paolo Sorrentino's "Le Conseguenze Dell'Amore." Continue with the rhythmic urgency of "Middle Curse," perfectly paired with the barely whispered vocals, and head towards "50 Faces Of," the album's hardest track that recalls "Maxinquaye" by the brilliant Tricky with its opening drumbeats and constant pounding rhythm. End your exploration in the ethereal and dissolving world of Lali Puna with "Come On Home" and "Satur-Nine," which close the album expressing their ancestral minimalist vein, a legacy of the unmistakable German music scene. Two tracks that, with their samples, recall the disarming coldness of Autechre's "Draft 7.30."

At the end of your fragmented, deferred, and anticipated listening compared to the tracklist, you'll realize you’ve taken a beautiful journey within your psyche because this is an album that puts you in the right psychophysical conditions to reflect and, above all, imagine.