Throughout history, people have seized freedom through either a collective or personal exodus. Yet, as the youth continue to re-sculpt images and recast roles for themselves, new escape routes must emerge beyond the highways and airports. The human body can contain rebel spirits even more than boundaries on a map, for even when the individual can dig a way out, no passport will wave them past the masses that still don’t acknowledge the exit.
Yet despite the odds, self-made identity artist AC Carter has fashioned many a multi-layered exodus as Lambda Celsius. Even without a performance, “Get Out”—one of the most propulsive cuts from last year’s Ana Echo and the Beauty of Indifference—proposed several ways to escape through a murky, Soft Cell-like haze: the road out of town, the back door of a tense relationship. But in this video, as the palm trees of L.A. tower over pavement in the afternoon sun, Carter practices what they preach. Nearly a whole country away from their home base of Athens, they introduce us to two fellow defectors, Lily Le Tigre and Lindy Erikes, each in outfits of their own design. “What is the feeling when one knows they must leave a city to find peace?” they ask us. “How does a trans identity come to terms with the body they were born in?” To replicate that displacement, Carter and their companions pull us into a hypnotic world of flickering color and forbidden curves, where everyone can watch and no one can touch.
In the internet age, anyone can create a new persona for themselves and escape reality. But with the Lambda Celsius roster, Carter doesn’t just mold divergent identities to express themselves. For those seeking a more tolerable existence in their own body, these prismatic characters show us various ways to escape and survive.
Watch/listen above.
Lambda Celsius will perform on Tue., Jul. 16 at Go Bar in Athens alongside Axxa/Abraxas (Asheville), Abe Leonard, and Caleb Craig.
More Info
Web: lambdacelsius.net
Bandcamp: lambdacelsius.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @lambdacelsius
Instagram: @lambda_celsius
SoundCloud: @lambdacelsius