The Lonely Bell – Time Beyond The Edges
Time Beyond The Edges
The Lonely Bell
Album
Ambient
Liam Murphy
November 6, 2025
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
.jpg)
Sound attacks from every angle as one passes through London’s Piccadilly Circus, the slow drone of cars and conversation keeping an unsteady rhythm, accented by a patchwork of sound: Anything from Taylor Swift to Darude’s Sandstorm blasted from rickshaw Bluetooth speakers, sycophantically bland in-store music, or fragments of TikToks vomited from a vape/souvenir shop owner's phone. All of this purposely vies for attention, but also coagulates as the sounds of the city.
Cutting a path through that 200-year-old square on Thursday would have taken you to a venue offering another kind of cacophony, though shockingly finetuned and ultimately foreign to the Anglophone ear. The central ballast to each end of Pitchfork’s London-based festival was Los Thuthanaka, a Bolivian-American duo – comprised of Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – like no other, as those who have listened to their self-titled album will know.
But entering the ICA early, patrons are greeted with a contrastingly melodious experience. Not blasting Latina radio idents at all.
“And the day comes, it’ll be over. And so quickly, you’re much older. And you’re sitting with your father, who is dying on your shoulder.”
Pollyfromthedirt, the first support act, sports a butterfly facemask, and sings out with a strikingly sombre unreleased track before dusting himself off with stiff upper lip anthem, There’s no such thing as England.
He croons with a captivating melancholy like a kind of Lewis Capaldi for lads that like to sit in a daze in the oldest, burnt-out pub they can find, lads who don’t know the teams playing but know what the score is.
From worn, lager-laquered laments, we move out into dark streets with electronic artist Nazar, whose loamy kicks and clicks threaten to raise well-missed London haunts like The Nest or Alibi from the dead. They curl and strike out into the black ICA space. The Belgian-born artist, with roots in Angola, is prone to sonic swings.
Voice filtered through a balaclava, it switches from nonchalant layering over uptempo tunes (carrying with them the influence of Angolan dance genre kuduro) to piercing through in fierce shouts, rising with sidechains through darker leftfield instrumentation. The sound proves too powerful as he leaves his post behind the decks and fires out his last song, decisive lyrics delivered through unrelenting strobes.
“I’m ready for some noises,” a voice came from a bathroom stall in the final interval. In the bar and the main space, there’s a tense anticipation, split between those “in the know” and excited by the performance that they are sure is to come and others, possibly somewhat unaware of what they are about to see. The dread of feeling too inebriated ahead of this set may be looming in on some. Shut it out. No going back now.
The duo, dressed in sparkly blue garments similar to a bullfighter’s chaquetilla, unceremoniously come on to check their equipment, before returning a few moments later to applause.
Los Thuthanaka sew the glittery dust of the opener, Huayño “Phuju”. That melding of kinetic beats and brazen guitar with ethereal keys. Its unique syncopated rhythm begins to canter, giving light chase for the audience to come along, like some celestial horse armoured in old electronic circuitry and sonidero USB sticks. The two halves of Los Thuthanaka begin to walk together, Chuquimamani bringing samples and synth and Joshua on guitar.
Chuquimamani was a lone rider on their last trip to the UK, stopping by Cafe OTO, but here, the pair present a united front, recreating that brash, interruptive style they’ve mastered so deftly in their music.
Joshua’s guitar is a perfectly deployed weapon throughout. It pierces through the chunky maximalism of Caporal “Apnaqkaya Titi”. But contrastingly drifts like alien limbs elsewhere, like the aforementioned opening track.
The stylistic touches are one thing, but there’s something to be said for keeping one’s musical footing on these constantly bucking tracks for minutes at a time, braving the recognisable idents: “Exclusivo” and “De-donde” and even the maniacal witch’s laughter that sprays out, hardly faltering the already bandy-legged step of the screeching guitar melodies.
An incredible moment occurs as the pair reach Parrandita “Sariri Tunupa”, the penultimate song of the set. Chuquimamani teases another shard-filled, ident-ridden onslaught, before their fingers skip backwards, bringing the descent to a halt and reversing it, like a DJ finding the beat. The anticipating crowd roars and then the song’s incredible – some may say dangerous – wall of sound is thrown up in front of the ICA audience. A slogan-ridden monolith as the performers disappear and flicker in and out past heavy strobes.
It is immense. It’s like a scene from a cartoon where someone’s lips begin to flap out like a parachute against strong winds. All beer/inebriate-fuelled stoicism is wiped away. Each one of the pair begins to take carve into the sound. Guitar flashes briefly, or deep sweeps of sound move underneath the chaos, and breaching the top of the onslaught are sustained chords.
An individual fairly near me shields their ears and looks genuinely frightened as the revolving clashes of Kullawada “Awila” land and stumble. Their friends try and laugh it off, but they’re aware that this is no place to be in what looks like the beginning of a bad trip. Further into the audience a person drops down low, hands in the air, dancing. The crowd is a land of contrasts.
The duo rocks in persistently uneven step with the hellish revolutions led by clattering snares. People jerk and move to the ruinous beat. No doubt the unorthodox rhythms will be hard to shake off, as people’s homeward steps from the ICA will be taken with a tired but starry-eyed caution.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.webp)
.webp)
