For three decades, the downtempo electronic project known as LAL has continuously evolved, experimenting with new sounds and shapeshifting ensembles. Known for its evocative atmospheres, the project’s only constants were singer Rosina Kazi, producer Nicholas Murray and the romantic relationship between them.
But in 2023, while recording their eighth studio album, Spectacular, Kazi and Murray consciously uncoupled, hoping to grow; to be better to each other and their music.
Easier said than done.
“We usually write everything in the room together,” Kazi tells The Grind. “For that record we were hardly in the same space.”
“I just didn’t have the capacity to do it,” Murray says. “It’s really difficult to make an album with the person you’re breaking up with.”
Long accustomed to producing LAL’s albums on his own, Murray brought in Barnyard Records producer and engineer Jean Martin to mix and co-produce. A cast of new and former collaborators filed into the pair’s formerly shared home and informal creative space on Sterling Road, Unit 2.
LAL were no strangers to working with expanded lineups — since the late 90s, their sound has adapted significantly, moving between trip hop and deep house, between jazz and spoken-word expression, and incorporating traditional Bengali and South Asian influences. But for the past decade, Kazi and Murray had largely conducted the project as a duo.
The sessions, though difficult, reminded them of the reciprocal possibilities that can come from reopening their creative practice to their community.
“Spectacular was about our community showing up for us while we were breaking up,” Kazi says. “And we needed that.”
Those lessons would also shape their follow-up, A Practice of Love, which Murray describes as “kind of like the aftermath,” an expression of “harmoniously creating something together without a [romantic] relationship.”
“I often find within the QTBIPOC community, which I’m very close to…, we hate on each other in the worst ways, especially after breakups,” Kazi explains. “We can’t do that anymore. We have to actually change the way that we treat each other and work on our trauma collectively, because it’s the only way we’re gonna survive that shit.”
A Practice of Love features contributions from longtime collaborator Ian de Souza on bass, Bengali flautist Dameer Khan, and veteran Northern Indian classical musician Raya Bidaye on harmonium. Multi-instrumentalist Viktor Kei, who provided the strings on Spectacular also takes on a larger role here, performing viola, cello and backup vocals.
“It was very much this community gathering of listening to one another and discovering new sounds with one another,” Kei says about the conversational process of writing his contributions to the new album.
The emphasis on community informs Kazi’s lyrics. “Getting Better” pushes back against the increasingly individualized language of self-care, arguing instead for systems of community care and mutual aid. “Self care actually can not happen without community care,” she emphasises. “We can get better if we create those support systems for all of us.”
“A Dangerous Thing” opens the record with a metaphor about the radical potential of gathering beyond the atomizing confines of our screens, and the connective role of physical gatherings: “We’re tuning into one another / Our sound systems they are blasting / That we’re in this together,” Kazi sings.
Inspired by filmmaker Rana Ghose’s BASS BOSS — a documentary that explores the rise of West Bengal’s Dek Bass sound system culture — “Into Fields of Disco” widens the aperture of Kazi’s perspective to express solidarity with grassroots efforts around the world to decimate boundaries and, perhaps, even sound barriers.
Murray’s production, meanwhile, gives the possibilities hinted at in Kazi’s lyrics an almost physical weight. Drawing inspiration from dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry, he submerged the album in low-end, and adorned it with re-programmed sounds of pots and pans recorded in various hotels and rental houses all over the world.
“I have always been inspired by the texture of sound,” Murray says. “It’s a throw back from sampling vinyl, which I no longer do.” He also experimented with hardware, using an Octatrack sampler and Prophet X paraphonic synthesiser, and mixing almost exclusively with analog equipment and Space Echo. Rather than honing every frequency with digital software, he kept mud and friction intact and let surprises reveal themselves.
Arriving Sept. 18 via Love Without End Records, LAL will celebrate the album’s release that night with a show at Allan Gardens as part of Venus Fest. Rather than simply reproducing the album tracks in a live setting, Kazi and Murray say the performance will incorporate projections, costumes and elements of LAL’s work in film, dance and theatre.
“It’s totally different than the record,” Kazi says.
“There are elements of the record in there and the emotionality of the record is very present in the live show,” Murray adds. “It’s coming together really beautifully.”
“I think it’s the first time we’ve ever had the chance to practice before we started playing,” Kazi says. “Usually playing is our practice.”
This article appeared in the 2026 Oct/Nov issue.
