Lento violento (translated from Italian as ‘SLOW AND VIOLENT’), is a subtype of Hardcore and Electronic Dance Music, generally produced between the speeds of 70 and 120 BPM. This substyle of music incorporates a hard bass kickback, a hangover from Techno style and a placeholder for Hardstyle subset. The vocals and lyrics may or may not feature dark/acidic undertones.

This club is packed with bitchy behaviour and rude mind games paired with an unrelenting beat, consistent, militant — control group focus group togetherness, malicious intent…
 

..recontextualizing and shifting, some insertions, of visual information, borrowed from the formal, compositional and material language of visual merchandising, fashion and nightclubs, LENTO VIOLENTO suggests a menacing, albeit subdued violence — think ultra-ambient house music — not nice…the ambient toil reflects the valorization of aggression, a stillness of violence…
 

who… does this bitch… think she is…
 

… but On a larger scale, LENTO VIOLENTO investigates subcultures that display and uphold visual forms of affectual violence – to be torn, to be ripped, to be worn, to left to rot….cuddly ….current wayward identification politics are anchored by the frayed and dog-eared edges of mass cultural subconscious.



 

Alcove, a dove, and the feelin gof falling
Jake Swinson

A catalogue essay for
Spencer Lai’s LENTO VIOLENTO at TCB Gallery

As the family drove over snowy peaks, the young girl (oldest of two) peered from the foggy window, bored. Sure, there were sights to see like an occasional bleating mountain goat or passing car. The girl always preferred the latter due to her knack for tinkering with motors and gadgets. As a vintage Corvette sped past them in the opposite direction, she began to draw symbols on the fog that had amassed on her window. She looked pretty as she usually did, with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. This morning her mother had selected a tartan look, finished with white lace and a small leather backpack. Her brother Angus was dressed to match in tartan shorts and a miniature leather briefcase. She looked over at him and he wore a similar bored expression. Where Angela preferred the sight of a passing car, Angus always preferred the bleating goats. But above all, to pass the time, they both enjoyed playing with their cat, sitting still in a travel cage on the red leather car seat between them. Since the children could remember, the cat wore a collar which donned a beautifully carved golden charm. Bella reached in and toyed the charm between her fingers softly.

 

The drive was en route to a much sought after travel destination for local families. The peaks offered ample adventures for high velocity skiers, and suave cafe’s and boutiques for those less inclined. One family member likes skiing, the other cafes. One liked gadgets, the other liked goats. 

 

Mountaintop after mountaintop, the girl could almost recall their shapes from memory. She entertained the thought of naming them all one day, one after the other, like a roll call; Jenny, Judy, and oh! Look there! It's Cathy! For the family had come this route every year since the girl could remember, their final destination being the much beloved winter cabin. Sure the grandiose staircase and open fire place made for some wonderfully cosy nights in, but it was the solitude and isolation which Angela relished most. Angus preferred the size of of their mansion and it's wonderfully maze-like rooms. They would play hide and seek in there for hours! The family cat began to whine and purr in a strange way, perhaps it's collar amulet was irritating it, because it was dangling in an odd position. 

 

The dad’s head whipped around from his position in the front seat, and he contorted his face to make the two children squirm slightly. The dad had always had an uncanny ability to mimic a buccaneer pirate, which both Angela and Angus had enjoyed immensely as children but now...not as much. They rolled their eyes at his attempt to cheer and looked gloomily back out the window, occasionally tapping on their up-to-date smartphones. Angela thought about pirates for a brief moment, then memory, then distance, then finally salt flats - until she finally fell asleep, her forehead smearing the symbols she had made in the foggy window. 

 

The drive continued and the snow had stopped momentarily and outside was calm. That was until Angus piped up softly. 

“What’s that?” He leaned between mother and father pointing through the windscreen and towards the side of the road. 

“It looks like some kind of black dog, injured, lying there.” he continued, squinting his eyes. The mother in the driver's seat hesitated to aggree.

“No, it's bigger than a dog by far.” suggested Angela, now awake and taking interest. 

The car rolled to a halt on the side of a particularly pointed snowy peak and they all heard the crunch of snow beneath the tyres. The engine turned off quietly. They didn’t dare drive any closer to the strange object, for it was incredibly out of place in this scenic mountain drive.

“Is it a dog?” One said.

“It could be a puppy!” Another replied.

“It looks scary…” Gasped one.

“Look, everybody be quiet, it could be dangerous. Look, it's moving now.”

The object began to move and contort, in the strangest ways... there was a magnesium-like quality to the movements, making each step fluid and glossy. It stood up and began to glide towards car and show itself as a very tall humanoid/specter like creature. Its face was ghostly white with a wide gaping mouth, black robes softly fluttering in the wind. 

 

“Who is that???” Asked Angus in horror.

“Stay in the car, it will all be ok.” Replied the mother, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening her door. 

She began to approach the figure and announced: 

“Can we help you? Are you ok?”

The specter stood still, standing over her almost double her height, head tilted to the side. It then grinned at her with wild RED eyes and pointed teeth like daggers. It's slender hands fondled with something in its deep dark pockets. The children let out a nervous whimper and the cat awoke, and in seeing the figure, began to hiss aggressively. Angela and Angus jumped with fright, then peered into the cage, investigating it's odd behavior. 

“The collar! Look at the collar!” insisted Angela.

And she was right, for the attached charm had begun to spin all by itself and had taken on a faint GREEN glow. 

“Wowwwww!” Exclaimed Angus in wonder.

“What the WHAT? Echoed Angela.

 

As the specter continued to approach, they recognised its unusual form. They found the queerest thing about the specter to be that it was a kind of translucence; it had a sheen like holographic quality to it that seemed to be self sustaining. The outer edges of the being were more like horizons than crisp shapes. It's wickedness was awful, bringing a stench which leaked in even through the tightly sealed windows. 

“Mummy make it go away.” Said Angela, as the mother walked closer to the thing, never backing down.

 

As the monstrous thing came closer, the amulet hanging from the pussy cat’s collar began to spin faster and faster, hovering now slightly and actually glowing a fierce RED now not GREEN. The cat had stood up and continued to hiss at the specter with bared fangs

 

After that, everything then moved very quickly. Just at the mother and the specter were two feet away from each other, the funny SYMBOLS that Angela had scribbled on the foggy window began to act strange. She remembered drawing them on the window right after the vintage Corvette has passed them some time ago. It was funny because, they suddenly had began to glow in a similar light to that of the cats collar amulet. Then suddenly the cats amulet jolted away from the collar and began to hover (mid-air) right before Angela’s eyes! The family simply  gazing at it, all mouths agape. Simultaneously, the symbols slowly peeled off the foggy window like paper SPELLS. They had also began to glow RED, contorting their shapes and co-mingling with the energy of the hovering amulet, in a spectacular show of inter-dimensional MAGIC! Somehow, the power of the charm and the symbols had activated and combining forces.

In seeing this through the windscreen, the specters face dropped, almost showing an expression like “oh, fuck.” It absolutely did not see THIS coming.

“Eat snow, fuck head.” Angela said with a shit eating grin as wide as her face.

 

The entire family watched in wonder as the two elements combined like sugar and hot water - then suddenly, with one last screech from the cat in the middle seat in the travel cage, about a thousand fabulous sparks exploded from it and scattered around the car. Then:

“ZAPPOLLLLLLKSKAAJS!!!!!” 

And the RED ball of energy shot towards the specter at full velocity, striking it in its tainted heart. The specter let out an avalanche inducing;

“HOWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!”

As it melted into nothingness, the robes disappearing softly and it continued to screech something in a demonic tongue. What was left sitting on the snow was a sinister looking dagger.

The family was gobsmacked. They sat there in silence until somebody spoke:

“It must have….” Started someone.

‘It must have had something to do with the correlation between those symbols and little Furball’s collar charm!” Interrupted someone else, always quick to butt in.

“Yeah, didn't Gran give us that collar for Furball?” Added another, inquisitively. 

“Yes she did,” said the final family member, softly.

 

“I remember the day we found it. We were in a brick-a-brack store on the way here actually, and Gran simply hovered towards it and picked it up straight away. She said it was like the amulet had ‘chosen her’. She also said that it would come in handy for us one day, and to give it to our most prized pet.” They looked down, forlorn. Heaving a gentle sigh, they gave Furball a scratch behind the ears. For a while, the family discussed what to do with the dagger that had not been vapourised with the explosion. They decided after much debate, that it would be too powerful for any of them to handle properly, and it was just ‘too strange’ for them to take on holiday. So Angela wrapped it up in a tartan blanket, matching her and Angus’ outfit, and tossed it off the cliff into a gaping abyss. As it fell, they all swore they could hear a faint screech coming from the sword as it plummeted into nothingness. 

 

The family kept of driving, still in a state of shock. Well all of them aside from Furball, who seemed pretty chuffed with herself! After that episode, the holiday unfolded with no other unexpected encounters. The children had a brilliant time playing hide and seek through the mansion, and that fateful day was rarely spoken about at the dinner table of evenings. It was swept under the rug or deleted, one could say. However there were moments...when, say, Angela was having fun tinkering with a gadget or Angus was spying on the local mountain goats, when they felt a cool shiver down their spine, and could have sworn……..it was that strange specter from that wild day on the way to the mountains, but they always knew, that Gran was watching over them keeping them safe. Well, Gran AND little Furball! (:

 

The end……... (): 

:p