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Download NEW DARK AGE for free from Bandcamp now!

CODENAME : LOLA is the guise under which one can find World Goth Day co-founder Lee M aka DJ Cruel Britannia & Mark D, the man behind the post-punk/gothic outfit Carnival Star.

The band is a separate but not exclusive entity to the roles they normally play within the scene, a vehicle for which a song could be released on May 22nd, a date now commonly known for being World Goth Day. The song itself is a cover of a little-known but anthemic track by seminal post-punk band The Sound called 'New Dark Age', written by the late Adrian Borland who passed away in 1999.

 

Lee & Mark had worked together previously when Lee was invited to undertake bass duties & remote engineering for Mark's Carnival Star release, the 'Era EP'. It only made sense then that some years later, Lee would pull Mark into helping flesh out this particular project with vocals & guitar. There was only so much remix work Lee could do for other bands as DJ Cruel Britannia before the yearning to return to something more involved would kick in. In fact the urge had always been there, but it wasn't until stumbling across 'New Dark Age' on The Sound's 'From The Lion's Mouth' album last year that the pieces fell into place and the motivation was found to reimagine the song in order to release it as a free download on World Goth Day, something that Lee wanted to do for a number of years after initially planting the seeds for World Goth Day itself (which is another story entirely).

 

The CODENAME : LOLA version of 'New Dark Age' is a more aggressive, fuller bodied incarnation without losing too much of the bleak soundscape of the original. Indeed, as a respectful tip of the hat to Adrian Borland himself, a small snatched moment of his pained vocal can be heard singing the last few words of the first verse; a further way of keeping the spirit of his songwriting genius alive. Initial work started on the track in March 2016 and was infrequently tinkered with as a bare bones, entirely electronic & mostly directionless instrumental. The real work didn't start until the beginning of May when Mark handed over the vocal & guitar parts to Lee, whereupon the mixing was completed. An accidental click of a button while mastering gave birth to something more raw and organic in the software causing the shape & sound of the track to change entirely, which seemed like a good point in time to hit the 'Save' button and focus on tweaking that particular mix unto completion. And that's how you got what you can hear now.

 

CODENAME : LOLA is a project with no real plan other than to say Thank You for supporting World Goth Day all these years. It smply wouldn't have survived for this long without each and every one of you.

As for Codename : Lola, this might be the first and last you hear of them. Or not. So, watch this space. Probably.

Contact CODENAME : LOLA

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