Balance by Martina Lussi

The new album of Swiss artist Martina Lussi joins what no longer is conjoined. Conceived and realized over a period marked by changes in both the private sphere and the world at large, none of which were thinkable before, Balance brings together the before and after. “Fragments of Attention” is the fulcrum of the album: it separates the first half, written before Covid, from the second, composed during the lockdown. The six-minute track serves as a rupture and bridge between a career at its by no means definitive apex and a new uncertainty in various aspects of life.

In spite of the division, Balance is held together by a common feature: Lussi’s voice, with which every composition began. Her singing, modified by effects, is supplemented by other sounds, which are light at times, bittersweet at others, and sometimes replace her voice altogether. Lussi’s singing plunges “Meditation on the Multitab” on the first half of the album into a cosmic soundscape; occasionally a rhythm irrupts into it. On “Time Lapse,” a track from the second half, the artist’s singsong articulates rhythmical elements and propels them towards a reluctant euphoria.

As an album, Balance appears open and fragile, at times even vulnerable, but Lussi’s relentless openness derives from the immense strength needed to weather changes both small and large.

Following the album’s production, the artist had Balance translated visually and olfactorily. The Amsterdam-based perfumer Niklaus Mettler concocted a scent based on the album, which accompanies the release. The artwork, into which the scent is integrated, was designed by the Zurich-based graphic designer Dorothee Dähler.

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Martina Lussi is a Swiss artist and musician. Her work, in which she frequently uses sound, has been shown in museums and exhibition spaces around the world. Her music has been released on Latency, Hallow Ground, and Otium, among other places. Following Lussi’s debut Komposition O08 and the split 10-inch ASIHNT / FOF19, Balance is her third release on the Swiss label Präsens Editionen. The new album appears in the label catalogue alongside releases by Samuel Reinhard, Belia Winnewisser, Magda Drozd, and Leo Hoffmann.

Präsens Editionen was founded in 2011 to give home to zweikommasieben Magazin. Ever since a bunch of magazines, books, zines, records, tapes and oddities have been published.

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