La Dame ”Bestiary“ (Defrostatica) – frohfroh – electronic music from leipzig

Welcome aboard frohfroh, David. From now on he will be introducing and describing new music from Leipzig. It starts with a strong jungle EP on Defrostatica.

Mythical creatures are an interface between nature and culture; they do not exist without the human who invents them. Tensions in human existence are projected into the realm of nature in animalistic disguise, where the human desires implanted in them overcome human power and are handed over to the power of nature. A person who invents a mythical creature has an agenda.

Brussels DJ and producer La Dame has recently released her very own interpretation of contemporary jungle music on the Leipzig label Defrostatica. The first release in this context is an EP entitled “Bestiary”. The record is characterized by musical precision and depth of content – and works both in the club and for concentrated close listening. The production is tight and has a confident, technocratic coolness. The sound is carried by percussive elements that, in combination with effective basses and animal samples, come together to create an original, individual sound. La Dame uses her deliberately limited instrumentation virtuosically on the four tracks. It is basically easy to summarize: In purely technical terms, the EP is already phenomenal. But that is not even its greatest strength.

There are no coincidences on “Bestiary”. Although only 16 minutes long, the EP is permeated by a condensed content program. The title refers to the millennia-old material tradition of bestiaries, i.e. artistic descriptions of animals that have often been charged with allegory in the context in which they were created. In this tradition, La Dame uses her musical means to paint a vision of hybridity. Each individual track portrays a mythical creature. These mythical creatures are animals that can either only be created by humans (“Full Metal Eagle”), that exercise mystical power as a human-animal hybrid (“Kinnara”), or that humans must overcome in order to change their fate (“Sandworm”, cf. Dune). How nice that a shape-shifter, the caterpillar, has also made it into this series. Viewed through the mirror of these mythical creatures, “Bestiary” can be read as a commentary on human hubris, because how could one seriously assume that a “Full Metal Eagle” drawn with electronic music could still represent any aspect of nature?

Part of the EP's genesis is that it was created as a balancing work for La Dame's dissertation. It may be a cliché to assume a causality between this EP, which is condensed in content, and the writing process of a dissertation that was taking place at the same time, but the suspicion cannot be completely shaken off. What is indisputable, however, is that La Dame impressively profiles her artistic expression on “Bestiary” and takes us not only into the world of mythical creatures, but also into a very mature, complete and, not least, individual overall aesthetic that is manifested in her music, but not exhausted. With her academic interpretation of contemporary jungle, she enriches jungle culture with an individual form of expression that has a great impact in the context of an overall aesthetic.

By the way: Defrostatica has released other exciting EPs in the last few months. So be sure to check them out too. The best place to find them is here on Bandcamp.