Year: 2020
Label: self-released

We return to Brazilian Lupusvir’s eccentric sounds. Although in a somewhat backwards fashion: this is actually the one man project’s first release, and .//passport_to_filg4ia (review) their second.

I don’t think it matters too much. Both releases are a creative combination of superficially hardly compatible styles. .//repeated_grey_fields is in some ways perhaps more so than the successor, so maybe it even makes sense to approach these two in reverse order.

At least we’ll tell ourselves that to pretend there’s a logic behind this.

Tracing the project’s development from this backwards delving in, perhaps one could say that .//passport_to_filg4ia consolidates the sound a bit, whereas on .//repeated_grey_fields there’s less cohesion between tracks.

Neofolk is one element on this first release. Mater Lachrymarum, which has (probably synthetic) trumpets and a bit of militant drums, sounds more like Death In June than Of The Wand And The Moon, as on .//passport_to_filg4ia. In this department, Lupusvir has admirably matured their expression between releases – .//repeated_grey_fields sounds a bit embryonic.

The other, more “out there” tracks are in some ways perhaps cruder on this debut, at least in how they appear more stripped down. But there’s an appeal to this as well. The understated soundscape of Disappear, with a jarring piano and digitized, repetitive percussion, and haunting speech samples, is positively unsettling. Invasion 2039 sounds like some old PC video game back from the day when its sound cards were inferior to the competition – I quite like the dreary sound.

To sum it up, .//repeated_grey_fields sounds like a project that with little prejudice experiments wildly, but doesn’t necessarily yet have a grasp of its own quintessence. .//passport_to_filg4ia sounds like a project that’s starting to understand it.

This means that, to reiterate, there’s a bit less cohesion on this earlier work. It has its upsides, too: there’s a wider range of styles in the pot, from кров’s sample based, even devotional dark ambience to Winter Camping’s slowed down, lo-fi trip hop beat, to neofolk, and so on. This has its own charm. On the whole though, I think I like .//passport_to_filg4ia a little better.

Either way, this too is a work of a pretty unique, singular musical vision. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea in its musically syncretistic, eclectic oeuvre. I find myself repeating what I said in .//passport_to_filg4ia’s review: “The unprejudiced listener /…/ will most likely find a lot that is rewarding on here. But definitely, it takes a special kind of person.”

Visit Lupusvir on their official website, Bandcamp or Instagram