Ando Laj’s international vinyl debut, COLLECTOR presents us with a succinct selection of some of the artist’s most compelling early work, serving as an almost subconscious introduction.
The record opens feverishly and glides through hazes of inhuman speech, swollen ambiance, and subdued melodies. Motifs are swapped subtly across tracks, with the use of indecipherable voices being a heavy recurrence, giving the sensation of receiving some form of instruction or message from unknown souls. At times, synth leads take powerful prominence with the unsettling warmth of a microwave oven, the tracks shifting from strange heavy beats to almost unnoticeable percussion. The album’s compositions of pure melody serve as its manifestos of softness and unattainable serenity.