Lavender Networks, out everywhere, physical release will be May 22nd

Fire-Toolz, the flagship studio project of the prolific Angel Marcloid, is a cloud of colorful tags that you can catch like items in a video game if you listen well: cybergrind, metalcore, emo, screamo, glitch, grindcore, prog, IDM, New Age, post-vaporwave, noise, smooth jazz fusion, avant-garde, etc. But on Lavender Networks, Angel's artistic freedom defies all definitions and labels, by melting them into something wholly hers.

The songs on the album have more to do with sculptures than with performances. “Balam =^..^= Says IPv09082024 Strawberry Head” is short and to the point; it's melodic, but also scathing and painful. “And Where Is The Heart? I've Searched My Entire Home (feat. Jennifer Holm)” is just “dance pop”, Angel says, and indeed you can't not dance to it. On the track “Quintessential Fixed Width Unfoldment (feat. Zola Jesus, Brothertiger, Nailah Hunter)”, Angel considers this one kind of like an orchestral opus of grief and mystery, “that one really does feel like a lifelong journey.” You could say that the entire album is one, aboard Angel's spaceship.

For as long as she can remember, Angel has been making music and piling up many selves and musical identities: Nonlocal Forecast, Angelwings Marmalade, Yapping Portal, Mindspring Memories, World of White Ice, and many others. Each of these avatars play with the codes and instruments of a hyperspecific musical genre, and each of them is like a little room in the house you are about to enter: welcome to Fire-Toolz house of maximalism. Angel Marcloid is also an accomplished studio engineer, working behind the scenes on acclaimed projects by a range of artists and genres, including No Joy (Bugland), King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (Teenage Gizzard & Live Albums), Bill Orcutt Quartet (HausLive 4), Blind Equation (A Funeral In Purgatory), and many more.

Having worked with so many artists across different projects, Lavender Networks presents a strong cross section of some of her family, friends, past collaborators, and artists she’s admired from afar. Liverfire is Angel's sister, Sling Beam her wife, Josh Plotner and long-time collaborator Alana Schachtel aka Lipsticism her friends, and harpist Nailah Hunter happens to be a friend of Alana's; as for Zola Jesus and Brothertiger, they are musicians Angel had been a fan of for some time – she had already performed with the latter and remixed one of his tracks. Angel first heard a song by Americana singer Jennifer Holm at the end of a Youtube video by Eddy Burback, and from then on listened to her albums, until she eventually contacted her. Fire-Toolz shares, “Now imagine a Nashville mom who sings on country albums and in her church band, being asked by an interfaith transfeminine anarchist from Chicago to sing on her screamy, noisy electronic album.”

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