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LP
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TSE 001LP
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War Island OST is the soundtrack to this complex and wide-ranging anthology of artwork by the multidisciplinary artist, GAIKA. It is a concept piece to be released as an international collaboration between GAIKA's own label TSE, NAAFI from Mexico City and, SVBCVLT from Shanghai. The soundtrack was installed at the ICA in London as a part room-sized audiovisual environment and will be released with a limited-edition album and art book on April 29th, 2022. At the time of increasing British isolation and political failure, GAIKA, the perennial internationalist, has turned the focus of his analytical lyrical approach directly to the place of his birth. Gone are the dancehall inflections and infectious rhythms of his Caribbean heritage. Instead, the focus is on London in 2022, a sprawling megacity city he poetically deconstructs with dense southside storytelling. The lyrics are set against futuristic urban production. The results are cinematic salvos from the global underground that demand investigation. Lyrically, War Island is GAIKA's attempt to analyze Britain's current geopolitical position in familiar terms. In It he considers the nation's capital by means of a conceptual construction he calls "The Good Ship Prosperity". It is a fictional public house that for him symbolizes the nexus of a multitude of thematic or emotive strands -- class struggle, crime and punishment, migration, and the politics of the built environment. From this position, War Island OST is the story of a braggadocious gravel-throated drinker lost in former glories and failed romances. War Island OST, like the country it chooses to satirize in its title, is a concept record bereft of moral compass in its leadership. GAIKA deliberately makes no direct philosophical musings in this record. Instead, its message is delivered matter of factly, often floating somewhere between spoken word, song, poetry, and road rap delivery. Touching moments are offset with bleak punchlines that leave little prisoners. By turns downtempo and decidedly industrial and by others anthemic soaring with fragile gothic beauty, The atmospheric soundtrack is a succinct demonstration of artists' sometimes contradictory aesthetic and testament to the collaborative nature of the work. Listened to in isolation War Island OST is an urban mixtape from the future, familiar yet somehow alien, hard yet intricate and emotive. Each song is structural and deliberate in nature, emotive pieces with a host of collaborators between London, Manchester, Mexico City, and Shanghai are poignant personal assessments of matters of power wealth and class in British Society and how these matters relate to the rest of the world.
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