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MANSPLAINED! - A compilation by Commando vanessa

A compilation to celebrate the first year of activity… not an easy task: too young to have a clearly defined personality and too old not to have one. 

Lots of thoughts crossed our minds, mainly revolving all around the same question: should we try to do something different? And lots of advice came our way: you should! You must! You need to! Let me show you how things are done!

So, this one is not only a combined action taken in Commando Vanessa style, but also a reaction. 

We are not looking to be different, we just want to embrace differences.

That’s why this is what it is: a diverse, colorful, exaggerated, intimate, political, sexy compilation. 

From the quarantine nightmare soundtracks of Pillbug Junction feat. Kelso Ashby to SIKSA’s Polish LGBTQIA+ community struggle anthem. From The Marquis’ black eclipses to HESS’ river of tears. From Lili Putana’s exaggeration of female stereotypes to the waves of Flawed God, the ambient project of Iphigenia Lee of Foie Gras. From the harrowing HAARGA to the powerful and dark Black Propaganda. From the air bubbles of Accident du Travail to Deeat Palace’s post-apocalyptic atmospheres. From Techno Thriller’s dark folk moods to the voyeuristic gaze upon female sexuality, history, unconsciousness and survival of Innocent Heretic feat. RUIN. From Marie Guilleray’s sensitive approach to the voice to Online Lipnem moony techno. 

Just a flow of different music we like.

LET THEM MANSPLAIN!

"Offering a little of everything, seemingly up to and maybe including the kitchen sink, the unique collection is by turns hypnotic, aggressive, mysterious, and just strange. Highly recommend for the adventurous listener" - Scene Point Blank

"Formed at the end of 2019 with a raison d’être to ‘embrace differences’, Commando Vanessa has already made a worthy impact critically. " - Monolith Cocktail

"Turin based, Italian boutique tape label Commando Vanessa is going to celebrate one year of bold off-kilter sonic meanderings with an intriguing tape compilation called “Mansplained!”" - White Light White Heat


J. ZUNZ - HIBISCUS

Second release of a series of collaborations with various labels, "Hibiscus" will be released on digital and vinly by Rocket Recordings.

In an era of uncertainty and introspection, frustrations will inevitably arise. Yet there may also be the potential for change. It is possible that the warping of time and journey into one's own headspace that come with alteres circumstances allow a moment to render the inner voice in the service of somehing transformative and pure.

Indeed, Lorena Quintanilla - better known up until this point as one half of Mexican duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete - has undergone just this king of trajectory in her solo reinvention as J. Zunz.

"Hibiscus" her second album under this name after 2017's "Silente", is the result of a metamorphic process whereby the minimal is rendered maximal and the personal is fused with the political.

The initial vision for the J. Zunz Project was for Lorena to strip her approach down to the basics. Yet the strikingly confident and singular "Hibiscus" marks a move on sonically from earlier comfort zones in her work, into minimal electronics, hypnotic repetition and compelling trance states, arriving at a soundworld in which cyclical synth patterns, eerie ambient textures and cathartic vocal exhortations coalesce into a beguilling atmosphere of otherwordly intensity. Although some might hear echoes amongst these songs of the like of Badalamenti's ghostly raptures, the bleak epiphanies of Nico's "Marble Index" or Fifty Foot Hoses's spare sci-fi psychedelia, both the approach and the resulting tapestry here are Lorena's and hers alone.

"Hibiscus" more than anything else is a process of alchemy - turning in a less-is-more approach into a formidable psychic assault, and undergoing an artistic transmutation that renders a compelling and uplifting work from trying times.

"Poised to push her further in the flickering floodlight" - Raven sings the blues

"Intoxicating" - Backseat mafia

"Hypnotic and beautiful" - Overblown


CHRISTOPHE CLÉBARD - SSS

First release of a series of collaborations with various labels, "SSS" will be released with different artworks/formats in France via Maison de Retraite and Bloc Note and in Belgium via Swallowing Helmets.

After four albums singing about love and breakups, here comes the last goodbye from Christophe Clébard, who is putting an end to this project to possibly adopt a new name and start to wander who knows into what other territories.

"SSS" revolves around a sense of restless personal frustration. The displacement and the romance that have been characterizing all Christophe albums don't disappear but move a little to the background leaving space to the lyrics that become more luminous and hypnotic as ever. The failed love is still on the horizon but here is more about the realization of powerlessness, of loss. A punch in the stomach that leaves you on the floor. 

So the music becomes the medicine, a therapy that helps to come out of oneself: pop to dispel the pain of the soul, noise to try to forget. Everything helps to dissipate these feelings of failure, and we are carried away by neurotic trance and ambiguous melancholy, poetic melodies and electro psychosis in a dark disco resonating with acid sounds and violent beats.

Christophe likes to play naked, but maybe it's with "SSS" that he gets naked for the first time.

Time to move on.

A unique delivery of disorder, confrontation and disarray” - The Brvtalist


“Clébard channels this sense of restless personal frustration fluidly into his music which induces a palette of emotions upon its first listen. From unease to quiet anticipation, this synth-ladened album is a work of art from start to finish” - Echoes and Dust

"SSS... the genius madness of a man who knows very well what he is doing. We did not know his earlier works, but we are looking for it right now" - Gonzo Circus