After five years of a fructuous collaboration with Juan Mendez, ‘Permissions of Love‘ is Tropic of Cancer’s first output clearly established as Camella Lobo’s solo venture, a three-track EP released in May on the Italian minimal/industrial label Mannequin. If the transition is virtually seemless, the emotional generosity of this record further discredits most labels that were attributed to the band, shoegaze, goth, coldwave, you name it. What Lobo sings is as ever hard to grasp, an end would suggest the titles but the voice itself is deep drowned in reverberation; there’s only this persistent smashing beat to hold onto, but somehow that’s enough to draw one into a strangely reassuring droning atmosphere which soon enough becomes so familiar that in contrast, the silence afterwards feels like a cold and oppressive void. Next step for Camella Lobo? ‘I Feel Nothing’, a new EP announced for October (Sleeperhold). – Tracy Mamoun
