Since the release of his debut EP, ‘The Monkeys Danced Like Cuboids’, back in 2003, Loz Koleszko has continued to stalk the peripherals of electronica, preying on both the dancefloor regulars and chin strokers who have strayed too far.
Now Koleszko is back with his first full-length album ‘Disinfections’.
Will Sandford fires 5 quick questions in his general direction.
-Tell me about your new album.
I see ‘Disinfections’ as a kind of metaphorical vomiting. When I think back to the EP (‘The Monkeys Danced Like Cuboids’), it reminds me of sunny afternoons and home. This one really is an album born out of bad times. ‘Disinfections’ is an album of hangovers and come-downs, of not having enough money to pay the rent at the end of the month and feeling the need to destroy something, anything just to change the way things are, but because you are Joe Schmo and not in the position to destroy anything of any real value, the only thing left to destroy is yourself. I guess that is what the album is really about: destroying yourself in order to become something new.
Most of it was recorded in this shit hole house I was living in. Some guy had died there a year before we moved in and the house was basically as he left it. There was a layer of year old solidified fat in the grill in the kitchen and all his clothes were still in the cupboards. Once time, I put on one of his suits and wandered round the house in the dark in an attempt to scare my girlfriend. She didn’t find it very funny.
Anyway, there was a slight air of paranoia and general doom n’ gloom in that house and I think that comes through on the album. It was a venue well suited to some good, old fashioned misanthropy.
I’ll never look back on ‘Disinfections’ and think ‘ah, those were the days’ but it certainty sums up the way I feel about the world right now.
-What is your worst fear?
I hate insects. I have this recurring dream where I’m walking towards town along Mansfield Road in Nottingham. I find it difficult to walk because it is so hot outside and I have been in a fight. I don’t remember the fight but judging by the state I’m in, I figure that I lost. There are piles of shit and puke all over the pavement and I’m staggering around trying not to step in any of it.
Anyway, there are flies crawling all over the shit and puke and as I move on they start to swarm around me. All the time, the piles of shit and puke are getting bigger and more numerous and, how can I put it... more unique. The line between what is shit and what is puke gets pretty blurry. They become varying states of digestion.
The flies start to show more interest in me than anything on the floor and begin to crawl under my clothes and around the cuts and grazes I have from the fight. They crawl inside the cuts in my skin so they can lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch, I can see the maggots moving around underneath my skin, going towards my vital organs so they can feed.
The maggots soon become adults and they break through my skin leaving gaping wounds around my body. Most of my insides have been consumed and I’m on my knees coughing up mouthfuls of blood and flies.
That’s all I can remember. I wish there was more of a climax to that story but, alas, it was not to be.
-Is it true that you were ordained into the church last year?
That is true. I was ordained into the Universal Life Church of America so officially you should be writing my name as Rev. Loz Koleszko. I did it over the internet in a matter of minutes, no questions asked, and I am now allowed to officiate weddings, funerals, baptisms and house blessings. They assured me that it was all legal and above board so I’ll have to assume that I’ll be going to heaven while the rest of you sinners burn in hell.
You can also buy a doctorates from them for about £30. Scary stuff.
-What question would you ask yourself if you were me?
I would ask myself why I’m not wearing any underwear.
-Aphex Twin or Squarepusher?
Autechre.
