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Lo Fat Orchestra – All I Want
| September 15, 2023 | Tomatenplatten |
| Single | Vinyl/Digital | 10:24 | 3 tracks |
| Garage Rock / Synth Punk | Switzerland |
Simplicity and Complexity
Love songs are a weird thing. Apart from the cheesiness that coins majority of the (popular) odes, poems or pieces on love, there is something odd about this kind of song. Love is so complicated on the one hand and so silly on the other, one can romanticise and inflate it to an enormous abomination or one can completely deconstruct it and degrade it to biochemical processes. In the end, we can always argue about which way is right, and no one will suceed. Swiss trio Lo Fat Orchestra have dealt with the isue of love on their new single All I Want in a threefold way. Have they solved the old problem thereby? Not a bit, but the release is nevertheless a gem for lovers, admirers, and for fans of cinematic sounds.
Life and Death on Seven Inches
The vinyl single can easily be compartmentalised into its two sides. And while the A-Side stands for life, and the B-Side for death. The two songs on the A-Side can be filed somewhere near Garage Rock, Synth Punk and some krauty influence, the B-Side is mostly defined by a noisy, hazy, shoegazy sound.
All I Want begins the title track which basically consists of the line All I want is you to love me looped on a 1980s Synth Punk theme. This spiral of desireful psychedelia continues in the second track All I Got which contains stronger impact by Garage and Punk sounds while the Krautrock impact vanishes. It is indeed the sadder and more sober perspective since it comes with the realisation All I got is never enough. One may be reminded of Fehlfarben’s Paul ist tot on the A-Side:
Was ich haben will, das krieg‘ ich nicht. Und was ich kriegen kann, das gefällt mir nicht.
Paul ist tot by Fehlfarben, 1980
The B-Side then lets the listeners dive into a dreamy sphere of numbness and coziness. There is nothing left that can harm the soul any more. Thus, four-and-a-half minutes of gentle floating into dizziness mark the record’s rear side.
Love may be silly sometimes and complex in toher situation. Songs about love tend to intensify these extremes very often. Lo Fat Orchestra provide an honest and yet sarcastic trilogy of music of love and affection.
7/10 Mangoes
