Glossolalia by Dave Aju

Never one to pull inventive punches, Left Coast electronic music producer Dave Aju reassembled this notorious cast of characters for a wildly fitting album package made during one of the strangest times our planet has ever faced in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. While things were essentially shutdown, reopened, and cycle-repeat worldwide, Aju and The Invisible Art Trio, his formidable if not-seen-in-a-minute musical team behind such timeless underground anthems as “Be Like the Sun”, went to work in the final days of the legendary G-Son studios in Atwater Village LA to record this LP.

Indeed, the same four/five walls and vocal booth that saw the Beastie’s iconic Check Your Head and Hello Nasty come to life, became the birthplace of Glossolalia, Aju’s fifth studio album and boldly impressive seven-song set. As always, a myriad of musical styles and influences are smashed together and masterfully combined here, to the degree that drawing comparisons or attempting genre references feels futile. There are, however, clear visceral expressions of political provocation, hope and anger, fear and joy laid over twisted yet committed grooves via a lockdown era where Aju’s imaginary collective dance floor feels in the temporary absence thereof and outernationally-ambiguous aim of recording every song’s lyrics in complete non-languages i.e. total gibberish, feels right at home. Even the vocal guests join in the literal chant here, blessing us with spell-casting and sensual/nonsensical lyrical lines over tech-funk motherlode tracks, before the team closes the otherworldly trip with a powerful grand finale tribute to the US of A’s proud boys-in-blue in the wake of George Floyd’s very public assassination.

Equal parts timely anti-establishment and uplifting call-to-action, Glossolalia serves as a crucial reminder of the powerful possibilities in collaborative and devoted noise-making, booty-shaking, and alternative world-building during greater global disarray - beyond stylistic, nationalistic, and linguistic dividing lines. An overtly universal and unifying message liberating us from any fixed cultural identities and thus differences, to instead just focus on how the music delivers and we physically respond, together, as the foundation. Perhaps an inspired response to the talking heads in every corner of the world’s media, spewing useless and politically-tainted mouth data at us amidst these turbulent times as well. As the apt album title implies, the ritualistic and ceremonial speaking in tongues leaves us with as many questions as answers, while we are enraptured in a complex and nuanced sonic balancing act of unknown yet strangely-familiar rhythmic bliss, which Dave Aju & The IAT wouldn’t have any other way.

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