Works in Metal is alchemic in its offering as Lamin Fofana’s pursuit of difficult meanings come to the fore yet again. Fofana sets about the arduous process of reworking and reshaping metals, seeking long-awaited transcendence from what writer, teacher, scholar, anti-colonial, feminist activist and Surrealist Suzanne Césaire refers to as the “sordid contemporary antinomies: Whites-Blacks, Europeans-Africans, civilized-savage”. Works in Metal seeks to destroy such paradoxes and damning self-beliefs sonically through sound archives, field recordings and unique production methods as a tribute to Césaire’s prophetic writing.
‘Arc’s Blues Flame’, the album’s opener, is dominated by high synth tones and occasional kick drums suggesting a vastness, equally calming as it is foreboding, signalling a new beginning, though a weariness still pervades. ‘Welding’ is discordant, for its screeching synths are bitingly formulaic, as if to weld (as per its namesake): to grind down in anticipation of something new to emerge or become. As ‘Welding’ draws to a close, percussive instruments hiss whilst uncompromising drilling remains ongoing. It carries the arc of restructuring the mind and the ridding of “colonial idiocies”, as in the absurd policies of the colonial system. It is not pretty. It captures the nitty-gritty of excavating internalised racial self-hatred, a process which is convoluted and gruesome.
‘Obscure Light (Decomposition)’ and ‘Obscure Light (Recomposition)’ present a dramatic tonal shift in Fofana’s work, pulsating rhythmically, encouraging organic movement through joyful reverb ready for the dancefloor. For Suzanne Césaire, Surrealism is the “permanent readiness for the Marvellous”. ‘Obscure Light (Decomposition)’ captures that aesthetics in its fusion of pleasant reverb, metallic clanging and apt egg shakers which emanate the dazzling and fantastical.
Given its reverence, ‘Lure of the Fragment/So Another Sound Suggests Itself’ is perhaps the crux of the album, the core around which the record revolves. Its genesis is delicately melodic, swinging between proximity and distance before the gradual interruption of a set of bashful chords that strike at the listener. Birdsong comess and goes, all the while drowned out by the re-emergence of elongated, organ-like chords that reintegrate a tenseness. Metal is inherently resistant to change until molten – perhaps that is what the gushing sounds here indicate. Fragmented and inaudible voices of children flutter in the distance before their submergence in static noise. ‘Lure of the Fragment/So Another Sound Suggests Itself’ offers no musical resolution owing to the album’s overall volatility. Instead, field recordings of infant voices fade to black unconvincingly, as if permanently etched in memory.
Works in Metal embraces the strange. It culminates in ‘Bird’. This last track returns the album to a precarious boundlessness, as if there is still work to be done. Inaudible sounds akin to groans ensue in the distance, intertwined with code-like fractious synths that echo amongst the sound of metal sculpting. A welding that could be mistaken (or interpreted) as breathing. Works in Metal is designed to transport. It is bold, forging an acoustic environment capable of reimagining Suzanne’s Césaire’s rhetoric, one that portrays the gravitas of a cosmic anger.
