Låska has a new video for their track “Grau” off the synth-wave duo’s most recent LP Strangers out now on DKA Records. The Berlin-based pair, Oksana and Dima Ivashinin, hail from Russia, and the project’s title translates as ”caress” in that language, though its Swedish origin means “black ink stain.” Having relocated to Berlin, their sophomore effort addresses the isolation of finding yourself alone in the big city. They explain:
“Our new album Strangers was deeply influenced by architectural landscapes, modernist and brutalist buildings, Bauhaus, concrete and the feeling you get when you are stranded within grey walls and wide streets of the megapolis. Two cities have that in common, especially in the darker months of the year when all of the city just becomes grey (“grau” in german) and blends all in: people, buildings and the sky.”
Musically, Låska is inspired by the synth-pop and cold-wave scenes of the ’80s, referencing bands like Imperia, Beta Evers, Depeche Mode, and Cabaret Voltaire as being important to the formation of their sound and approach. “Grau” is one of Strangers‘ instrumental numbers. The techno-leaning track is animated by a pounding kick and distortion drenched synths. But as the haze of white noise lifts like fog on a crowded dance floor, driving bass and a chiming guitar emerge as a gray mood gives way to elation at the night’s possibilities.
The video for the track was created by the Russian artist Alisa Menshikova. She is a student at the British School of Art and Design in Moscow currently working with drypoint printmaking technique. This painstaking process of printing means there’s lots of trial and error, and the video’s images were all scanned and composited to aide in its animated quality. Låska explains:
“Alisa took some images we made of Berlin during our first year here – TV Tower at Alexanderplatz, White City (a Bauhaus masterpiece in our current neighbourhood), Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, Bauhaus Archive Museum, etc. – reproduced them with drypoint technique, added images of our previous home – Moscow (+ some smaller Russian cities with recognisable Soviet scenes in the mix) and animated them into a sequence of moody postcards.”
