Wu Lyf

With all the masked faces and colourful smoke, Wu Lyf’s official press photo looks like it was taken during last year’s student riots. Their name, World Unite – Lucifer Youth Foundation, also says it all. And the idiosyncratic language and semiotics of their titles alone are worth mentioning: “Christ Mass, Lucifer Calling”, “Spitting It Concrete Like A Golden Sun God”, “Diamond Voices Sing Diamond Songs”. Next to current favourites Egyptian Hip Hop, comparisons have also been made with the displaced aesthetics of Swans and Health, the somnambulant rap of Mobb Deep, as well as with the drug-drenched space-rock of Spiritualized. However, when the British press brings in the holy working class heroes Happy Mondays, then there really must be something to them. Despite the hype, the ten-strong Wu Lyf clan insists on its autonomy: They have rejected lucrative deals, and last November recorded their debut album not in an aseptic studio, but in a vacant church in Ancoats. Right in the heart of Manchester capitalism, whose factories Friedrich Engels, in his book “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, identified as the reason why the bourgeoisie never settled there. Just the right setting then for the devil’s latest crew.