Lozk is an electronic musician from Bogotá, Colombia; real name, Leonardo Suárez Jiménez. On his newest release, Meaningless Words, Lozk approaches industrial music from a fresher, more global perspective. With many synthetic or manipulated sounds imitating real life industrial noises, there’s a touch of Depeche Mode to their style, as if Martin Gore had discovered World Music. Meaningless Words is an apt title, because the work is largely instrumental and when vocals do appear, they’re more for the atmospheric content than any real lyrical depth, adding to the effect of his amalgamation of various cultures into one intoxicating brew.
Sampling sounds from daily life and other sources plays an integral part to this album’s sound, further blurring the lines between electronica and ambient. Some songs are relatively more traditional and structured to various genres like “Amusaca,” and “Oscuro,” but even they still contain elements of different world genres. Others like “Han Sow” and “Andafeal” deftly incorporate elements of folk and acoustic guitars, making an album like this even more difficult to pin down stylistically.
It’s easy to say Lozk has accomplished something very difficult to pull off, which is to create an entire separate universe for his work to thrive in, while remaining partially footed in cornerstones of world music. Meaningless Words is out October 10th.
