With the minimalist of beats, Rosina Kazi and Nicholas Murray make maximum impact on Find Safety, the latest release from their ongoing musical collaboration, LAL. Murray describes the album as a return to their roots to a sample based, two-bar loop aesthetic, stripping away music industry expectations and focussing on LAL’s strength and “…what we wanted to say and what our true intentions were.”
Kazi and Murray have long been involved in community social justice issues, in particular a commitment to creating safe and inclusive spaces for creative people who didn’t find a place among the city’s club scene; a space “…for queer folks and folks of colour, to create something that was more community-based” as Kazi recently described to CBC Music. Find Safety is a finely rendered distillation of the creative energy that courses through Unit 2, the event space they run out of their west end Toronto home.
Kazi is an exceptionally gifted vocalist, and the space created by Murray’s barely-there synth swells affords plenty of room for her meditative, emotive words. Though they call their sound “4am music”, Find Safety is brimming with rhythmic dance music that’ll make your body move no matter what time of day you hear it. Opener “Dead Happiness”, last year’s “Tiny Mirrors”, and recent single “Stand In My Way” are propulsive, political songs that stimulate your intellect, relax your inhibitions, and welcomes you to the party just as you are. Not only will you find safety inside LAL’s musical spaces, you’ll find that special glimmer that comes from true inspiration.
Originally posted on Quick Before It Melts 25 April 2016.
