“Mind the Gap” by Band Lolita Terrorist Sounds is a Thrilling Journey From Daily Banality to Creative Transcendence

Lolita Terrorist Sounds, photo by marilebones

“Mind the Gap” is a single by Berlin-based Lolita Terrorist Sounds from its harrowingly fascinating album St. Lola (released October 20, 2023). Apparently it’s a musical journey that connects London and Berlin and its music video show on 8mm is reminiscent of the kind of visuals one saw in Einstürzende Neubauten’s video for “Sabrina” – dark, lurid, spooky but in the end deeply compelling. We see a gender fluid protagonist taking a train as mentioned in the lyrics of the song through what looks like Europe of the 1970s or 1980s. The song is driven by a simple piano figure propelled by urgent percussion, some vital and haunting lap-steel presumably provided by longtime Swans member Kristof Hahn who contributed to the album. Band leader Maurizio Vitale’s vocals are somehow both intense and inviting and the song encourages the listener to do something inspiring with their lives rather than count down the days remaining to you in purely mundane pursuits. The song is in the vein of industrial post-punk as the aforementioned foundational industrial band and the likes of Crime and the City Solution and of course Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The album was recorded and produced in a studio in East Berlin in a building formerly used by presumably the Stasi during the era of the Berlin Wall. The setting and the limited use of old microphones and analog equipment gives all the songs a certain quality of spontaneity and hauntedness that suits well its themes of marginalized people and the undeniable appeal of the freedom of gritty, urban avant-garde modes of expression. The album also includes the late, great, experimental multi-media artist Rob Rutman (Steel Cello Ensemble) on bow chimes for opening track “Shaved Girl.”