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Lodern, by Wicked Cities From A Distance, Exclusively Released on Bandcamp, September 19th, 2024

Lodern cover art, by Wicked Cities From A Distance

The old kicks the bucket. The new catapaults itself into being. An everlasting cycle. Rinse and repeat. Ever changing and always occuring. Life, death, restated.

The gap between death and rebirth is known as the liminal space. This space occupies a poetic place in storytelling. Imagine a limbo place where twilight, awkwardness, and risk form the lay of the land. A bardo that underscores the contrast between the old and the new. An initiation that compels a clear look at the past as well as energizing the will to jump bravely into the future.

Everyone enters the liminal space. It happens over and over again. All of us come back renewed afterwords. It's a rite of purification. Problems consumed by that inferno never return with as much power as they once had. We move on, relieved yet vaugely aware that this dance will happen many, many more times in our lives.

Lodern (coming from the old German verb “to blaze”) by Wicked Cities From A Distance, is music of that transformation.

Lodern displays an astonishing magnitude of variety, contrast, rhythm, and thickness without modifying the fundamental harmony. At moments, there dwells a deeply-embedded chaos. One sound burning itself up only to get replaced with something new. A death of the old and the sprouting of the new.

Like the liminal space, Lodern holds contrast. A narrow mono signal contrasting with a wide stereo relief. Long-held drones contrasting with a spirited loop run through a distortion pedal. A triangle wave fundamental contrasting with a pitch-shifted Fender Rhodes. Time-based storytelling that plays with the richness of timbre.

Lodern invites a listener to stir the pot. It encourages full participation, staring with a clear consciousness at the coming transformation in this world, eyes-wide-the-fuck-open.

Inspired by the relentless change in the modern era, Lodern invites you to suspend time, enter the liminal space, and exit a little wiser.