Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine are rarely in the headlines for albums, strictly speaking, they are rarely the backdrop for anything over here in the West unless it concerns Orbán and Putin. On Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm, the names of the countries set the narrative and atmospheric framework purely by the way they are mentioned. You enter the Carpathians, and with it a mountain range that is relatively close to Germany, but already quite in the middle of the FOREIGN, the East. A mountain range which no one associates with motorway tunnels, but rather with shepherds and sheep skulls and folklore. Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm make use of exactly that. The otherness is quickly established, the interest thereby aroused. Dwellers, Bones and Witches provide the titles and the cultic is established with great vehemence and effect; on the second track, you encounter depths, spirits and sulphur in the lyrics. Of course, with semantics like this, Toulouse Low Trax can already be seen waiting just around the corner, rubbing his hands with glee, licking his lips and wearing a monk’s robe. Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm had already released an excellent album six years ago as FITH. What was only simmering back then, is now more pronounced: the wide expanse in Dalia Neis’ voice and the noir techno, somewhere between Nicolas Jaar (no front) and Lena Wilkens. Quite an exclamation mark from the house of STROOM 〰, which I was just about to start ignoring.
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