LUCKY PIERRE Hypnogogia (Melodic) cd 16.98
Lucky Pierre is Aiden Moffat, the darkly salacious, hard boozing voice of Arab Strap, but this is not another outlet for the tales of questionable liaisons, jealousy and, well, fucking that make that band so compelling. Rather than rant, Moffat presents a blend of richly orchestrated cinematic instrumentals and warmly crackling vinyl samples backed up by electro and downtempo beats. The string- and wind-laden sound is incredibly full and lush, with an underpinning sense of melancholy. Like The Notwist, Lucky Pierre suceeds in bringing electronic elements into a dreamy analogue environment; this album might be enjoyed by fans of DJ Shadow or the last Kreidler album. If Arab Strap conjures images of drinking shitty beer in a dive bar where your ex is the bartender, Lucky Pierre is more like enjoying an opiate haze in a dim but well appointed victorian bedroom. Very pretty.
RealAudio clip: "Angels On Your Body"
RealAudio clip: "Shatterproof"

LUCKY PIERRE Hypnogogia (Melodic) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Lucky Pierre is Aiden Moffat, the darkly salacious, hard boozing voice of Arab Strap, but this is not another outlet for the tales of questionable liasons, jealousy and, well, fucking that make that band so compelling. Rather than rant, Moffat presents a blend of richly orchestrated cinematic instrumentals and warmly crackling vinyl samples backed up by electro and downtempo beats. The string- and wind-laden sound is incredibly full and lush, with an underpinning sense of melancholy. Like The Notwist, Lucky Pierre suceeds in bringing electronic elements into a dreamy analogue environment; this album might be enjoyed by fans of DJ Shadow or the last Kreidler album. If Arab Strap conjures images of drinking shitty beer in a dive bar where your ex is the bartender, Lucky Pierre is more like enjoying an opiate haze in a dim but well appointed victorian bedroom. Very pretty.

LULLABY LEAGUE Filia Melusine - Parcel Series (Dynamophone) 3" cd-r box 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's another addition to always dreamy sounding and delightfully packaged Dynamophone Parcel series. Filia Melusine is a lovely spoken word piece read by Ms Phyllida Law. Her tender voice floats atop a soundscape of Evan Sornstein's soft drones and Jacob Phelps' delicate piano and guitar. The words can be traced back to a 15th century tale. Achingly intimate and deeply romantic, 'tis a magical bedtime story of personal quest and loss. The limited edition cd-r comes in a sweet little 3" box along with an added little treasure.
MPEG Stream: "Filia Melusine (excerpt)"

LULLABYE ARKESTRA Ampgrave (Constellation) cd 16.98
Seems there's been another spate of outcroppings from the Godspeed You Black Emperor musical empire recently -- notably the Fly Pan Am offshoot Feu Therese and this duo of drummer Justin Small (also of Do Make Say Think) and bass player Katia Taylor. Hmmm, we suspect that this Lullabye Arkestra will fail oh so miserably at the task of sleep inducing, but it will succeed formidably at kicking the thermometer up a degree or ten. Their aggressive sound is markedly different from the rest of the GYBE clan. It might be the most trashy, garage rawky, angstful, swampy blues boy'n'grrrl punk edged thing we've ever heard from the Constellation Records label (home to Godspeed, Fly Pan Am, Silver Mt. Zion, et al). The fury churned up by the two core members is further fueled by horns, Hammond organ and violin contributed by their skilled musical brethren including other members of DMST. A fevered good time!
MPEG Stream: "Hold On"
MPEG Stream: "Nation Of Two"

LUMEN The Man Felt An Iron Hand Grasp Him By The Hair, At The Nape, Not One Hand, A Hundred Hands Seized Him, Each By The Hair, And Tore Him Head To Foot, The Way You Tear Up A Sheet Of Paper, Into Hundreds Of Little Pieces. (Temporary Residence Ltd.) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So beautiful! Finally available, the debut album by local quartet Lumen, which features our esteemed co-worker (and ex-A Minor Forest drummer) Andee Connors, and Jeff Rosenberg, formerly of Tarentel. This instrumental album is forefronted equally by guitar and drums... but not just any guitar and drums. The guitar (in this age of louder-is-better Mogwai-wannabes) is defiantly ACOUSTIC and takes advantage of all the warm, woody, crisply resonant qualities inherent in that unusual choice. The drums are played by Andee, so you can rest assured that they are tight, complex, sonically engaging, undeniable yet not spotlight-hogging, and completely satisfying. The interplay between these two cleverly-wielded elements is augmented with stand up bass (bowed much of the time, yum), melodica, and accordion. The songs are extended but they never seem to meander -- the bittersweet guitar chords are fingerpicked to arpeggiated prettiness (to the point where they sound like classical chamber guitar) -- and the songs require several minutes to resolve themselves, making the resulting tension & release quite lovely to behold. The album's tone is mellow but never lethargic, quiet but propulsive, emotional but not sappy at all. It's just really damn good. Released on the consistently excellent Temporary Residence label.
P.S. The title of the album is from a story by Italo Calvino.
RealAudio clip: "V (excerpt 1)"
RealAudio clip: "V (excerpt 2)"
RealAudio clip: "IV"
RealAudio clip: "I"

LUMENS s/t (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Smokey Emery and Thousand Foot Whale Claw.
Lumens is a mysterious collaborative effort featuring members of Smokey Emery, Silent Land Time Machine and Troller, and is very much what you might expect when you put those three bands together. Murky cavernous industrial drones slowly bloom into all kinds of decaying ambiance, piano tones, viola and looping vocal whispers. Looming and dark clusters of layered organic sounds and field recordings, scraping rhythms and buried melodies, carefully arranged to hypnotically listenable effect. Over 4 long tracks, the compositions build from abstracted soundscapes to krautrock tinged build-ups, the final track merging into No Pussyfooting territory with layered repeating tape loops that float up towards the stars away from the murk they originally came from. Mesmerizing! Limited to 100!
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Voice"
MPEG Stream: "When I Knew You"

LUMERIANS Burning Mirrors (Rococo Records) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another badass slab of psychedelic hypno dirge space rock courtesy of local boys The Lumerians, who definitely have the druggy drone-y dirge dirgey thing down pat. If you dig the Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Cave, Moon Duo, and other practitioners of blown out drug rock mesmer, well then you're gonna love the Lumerians. Channeling Spacemen 3, mixing in some serious krautrock, adding heaping doses of spaced out FX, these guys lock into a groove and then ride it out, totally hypnotic, cyclical, trancelike. Reverb soaked guitars, murky distorted vox, washed out, looped bass, buried melodies, all blurred and smeared into lysergic drone rock that is totally captivating. Be sure to stick around for the B-side, a barely recognizable cover of the Osmonds' infamous killer jam "Crazy Horses", given a total hazy space drone dreamdrug makeover. So awesome.
Now we have just one question, WHERE'S THE FULL LENGTH?!?

LUMERIANS Horizon Structures (Knitting Factory Records) 12" 15.98
Latest vinyl-only release from these SF psychedelic space rockers, whose sound has gradually grown funkier with each record, culminating in the recent Transmissions From Telos Vol. IV tape, which found the band aligning itself with Bitches Brew era Miles and Sextant era Hancock, not bad company at all for sure. And while that release, a tour only tape oddity that found the band experimenting in the studio, was twisted fun for sure, this new Horizon Structures 12" finds the band getting back down to business, this time the business of crafting four futuristic jams, equal part seventies jazz funk, eighties new wave, and some mutant strain of kosmische synth exploration. The sounds here definitely hew closely to the cover art, a 3-D rendering of some psychedelic tripped out spacescape, with the opening track a pulsing sprawl of buzzing synths, and laser beam bloops, spaced out and cinematic, and seriously poppy, maybe the poppiest thing we've heard from these guys, percolating swirling melodies, FX drenched vocals, a sort of space-y future pop, that culminates in a percussion heavy, wah guitar dowsed final freakout groove! The second track on the A side is a minimal new wave dirge, laced with all manner of percussion, and like the rest of the tracks here, with a sort of retro futuristic sheen.
The first track on the B side is the killer here, a groovy blast of sci-fi space funk, peppered with electric piano blurts, woozy basslines, wheezing keyboards, swirling synths, dense driving percussion, which then seems to get reworked on the second track, the same groove, but this time even groovier and funkier, wild freaked out drumming, chaotic synths, tripped out FX, all leading up to a dreamy kosmische synth finish. Cool.
Packaged with, according to the sticker on the front, "4D glasses for access to transdimensional viewing portal", which to these eyes seem more just like 3D glasses, but the cover looks AMAZING viewed through those specs, and if you DO wear them outside (with Lumerians blasting in your headphones, we'd imagine) they do seem to make things glimmer and sparkle, a secret glimpse of what lies beneath/beyond?

LUMERIANS s/t (Subterranean Elephants Recording Company) 12" 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Well, it looks like the Wooden Shjips don't have the market cornered on sixties inspired drone drenched psychedelic drug rock after all. The Lumerians offer up their own take on modern psych with their debut ep, 5 songs, all of them looooong and gorgeously tripped out. Where as the Shjips seem to be channeling the Doors, the Lumerians take ? And The Mysterians, mix in some Fuzztones, and filter it through the sound of Spacemen 3 and Loop resulting in a mesmerizing, repetitive organ infused doped up hypnorock.
The second the opening track kicked in we were SOLD. Fuzzy blown organ, pounding simple drum beat, super sixties vibe, buzzy and trippy and druggy and totally divine. The vocals drawling over that relentless beat and that warm thick organ. Wooden Shjips fans will freak, and just might have found a new favorite local band.
The second track is just as cool, but way different, super minimal, almost jazzy, with muted percussion, subtle bass grooves, soft shimmery synths, very spacious (and space-y) and laid back, like a druggier more psychedelic Necks.
The B side is all slow lugubrious organ drenched crawl, shuffling drums, a wall of washed out buzz, with one track introducing some ethereal, blissed out female vocals, drifting weightless above the fuzzy groove, giving that track a serious shoegaze vibe.
Killer stuff. Super limited. Only 500 copies, each pressed on nice thick clear vinyl, housed in a plastic PVC jacket with a thick color cardstock insert, and comes with a code, so you can download MP3's for your iPod as well.

LUMERIANS The Weaning And The Dreaming (Sanity Muffin) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We got a very small handful of this, a super new, ultra limited, tour only tape from local psychedelic space prog aQ faves Lumerians, who for this single half hour track, recorded a handful of the instruments, then flipped the tape, playing back those instruments in reverse, and tracking the rest of the band to the backward sounds. And if that weren't cool enough (we're a sucker for backwards sounds), the B side is the A side in reverse, which makes the original tracks play properly, while the proper tracks/instruments from the A side are now reversed. Trippy! And seriously psychedelic.
Both sides a dizzying sprawl of minimal drone-psych drift, swooping backwards rhythms, soft synth swells, twisted swirling melodies, lush builds to gorgeous expanses of dense sonic swirl, noisy and abstract, droney and hypnotic, a bit industrial in places, streaks of black ambience drifting through field of electronic shimmer, grinding electronics wrapped around whirling FX squiggles, both sides, obviously quite similar, warped mirror images of each other, a two sided palindromic psychedelic freakout, both halves heady, and dizzyingly divine, total mind melting headphone bliss.
VERY VERY LIMITED. Most of these the band sold on tour, it's LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered, we got a bunch, but unclear how many more we'll be able to get once these run out. If any!!
MPEG Stream: "The Weaning And The Dreaming (Side One Excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "The Weaning And The Dreaming (Side Two Excerpt)"

LUMERIANS Transmalinnia (Knitting Factory) cd 13.98
LAST LIST'S RECORD OF THE WEEK, BACK IN STOCK - we blew out of these FAST, over the first weekend after the list, so if you missed it then, we wanted to let you know they're here again...
It's been a long time coming. After the tease of a 7" and a 12" ep, both tantalizingly KILLER, and a ton of incredible live shows, including a show stealing performance at the aQuarius records 40th anniversary party, comes this, the full length debut from SF psychedelic hypno drone psychedelic space rockers Lumerians, and it's just as good as we'd hoped and imagined. For those who've yet to hear these guys, have a look at this list of bands: Wooden Shjips, Hawkwind, Circle, Spacemen 3, Loop, Cave, Cloudland Canyon, The Heads, White Hills, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, 3 Leafs, Mugstar. Does that look anything like your record collection? Then odds are you've just found your new favorite band. And if there's any justice in the world, these guys will get the same sort of hype and adoration that Wooden Shjips do. Not necessarily because they sound the same, they definitely don't, but they both DO explore similar territory, spaced out buzzy, fuzzy droney psychedelic rock, but where the Shjips are minimal, Lumerians are maximal, with multiple keyboards, even a percussionist, their sound more lush and layered, similarly propulsive and driving, but maybe with more of a nod to Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, creating super mesmerizing cyclical hypnorock epics. And these tracks are indeed epic, slow building, smoldering, hypnotic, totally trancelike but still super heavy and rocking.
Opener "Burning Mirrors" pretty much sums it up, loopy low slung bass, simple motorik drumming, crunchy super distorted fuzz guitars, and thick swaths of spacey keyboards, not to mention drawled laid back vox, all appropriately reverby and echoey, these guys traffic in the sort of sound, where every song, whether 5 minutes or nearly 10, sound like live, they could go on for 20, 30, even 40 minutes, druggy, lysergic, tripped out and psychedelic, head nodding, body moving drone rock bliss.
"Black Tusk" gets all sixties, the drums shuffly and busy, the keyboards crunchy and fuzzy, lots of percussion, the bass driving everything, swirly and psychedelic and minus the killer production, and the super distorted stuttery organ buzz could be some lost psych jam from back in the day. "XuluX" is another sprawling droned out jam, that gets seriously groovy, with all sorts of heavily effected guitars, and more crunchy organs, before blissing out into some seriously swoonsome keyboard driven psychedelic drift.
And so it goes, "Atlanta Brook" definitely conjures up the spirit of Spacemen 3, the vocals a dead ringer, the hazy warped buzz the perfect prescription, but Lumerians add their own twist, infusing it with some strange rhythmic bridges, and buzzing sitar melodies, before slipping back into a washed out almost Beatles-esque outro.
"Calalini Rises" might be the heaviest track, murky and muddy, the drums locked tight, tribal and propulsive, all the other instruments loose and chaotic, a constant sonic swirl, totally spaced out and abstract, definitely a song that could have stretched out for another couple hours. But one of our favorite jams might just have to be "Longwave" which sounds like Lumerians at the wrong speed (which we presume it must be), Neu! style, the band unfurl a droney dirgey spacerock jam, slowed to a crawl, the guitars even thicker and grungier than usual, the drums lumbering, but then the vocals come in, and they're perfectly melodic and dreamy, and drift over the undulating psychedelic murk below, culminating in a gorgeously tripped out second half, with lots of rumble and whir and buzz and drone and swirl and shimmer (but be warned vinyl folks, in order to fit the whole album on a single lp, they had to speed this song back up, shortening it quite a bit, everything is essentially the same, just the murky background music is a little less murky). So good.
Seriously. If any of the above bands are your cup of tea, try spiking that tea with some Lumerians, you won't be sorry. Easily, THEE space drone psychedelic hypno rock record of the year. Drop out, and dig in!
MPEG Stream: "Burning Mirrors"
MPEG Stream: "Black Tusk"
MPEG Stream: "XuluX"
MPEG Stream: "Longwave"

LUMERIANS Transmalinnia (Knitting Factory) lp 16.98
It's been a long time coming. After the tease of a 7" and a 12" ep, both tantalizingly KILLER, and a ton of incredible live shows, including a show stealing performance at the aQuarius records 40th anniversary party, comes this, the full length debut from SF psychedelic hypno drone psychedelic space rockers Lumerians, and it's just as good as we'd hoped and imagined. For those who've yet to hear these guys, have a look at this list of bands: Wooden Shjips, Hawkwind, Circle, Spacemen 3, Loop, Cave, Cloudland Canyon, The Heads, White Hills, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, 3 Leafs, Mugstar. Does that look anything like your record collection? Then odds are you've just found your new favorite band. And if there's any justice in the world, these guys will get the same sort of hype and adoration that Wooden Shjips do. Not necessarily because they sound the same, they definitely don't, but they both DO explore similar territory, spaced out buzzy, fuzzy droney psychedelic rock, but where the Shjips are minimal, Lumerians are maximal, with multiple keyboards, even a percussionist, their sound more lush and layered, similarly propulsive and driving, but maybe with more of a nod to Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, creating super mesmerizing cyclical hypnorock epics. And these tracks are indeed epic, slow building, smoldering, hypnotic, totally trancelike but still super heavy and rocking.
Opener "Burning Mirrors" pretty much sums it up, loopy low slung bass, simple motorik drumming, crunchy super distorted fuzz guitars, and thick swaths of spacey keyboards, not to mention drawled laid back vox, all appropriately reverby and echoey, these guys traffic in the sort of sound, where every song, whether 5 minutes or nearly 10, sound like live, they could go on for 20, 30, even 40 minutes, druggy, lysergic, tripped out and psychedelic, head nodding, body moving drone rock bliss.
"Black Tusk" gets all sixties, the drums shuffly and busy, the keyboards crunchy and fuzzy, lots of percussion, the bass driving everything, swirly and psychedelic and minus the killer production, and the super distorted stuttery organ buzz could be some lost psych jam from back in the day. "XuluX" is another sprawling droned out jam, that gets seriously groovy, with all sorts of heavily effected guitars, and more crunchy organs, before blissing out into some seriously swoonsome keyboard driven psychedelic drift.
And so it goes, "Atlanta Brook" definitely conjures up the spirit of Spacemen 3, the vocals a dead ringer, the hazy warped buzz the perfect prescription, but Lumerians add their own twist, infusing it with some strange rhythmic bridges, and buzzing sitar melodies, before slipping back into a washed out almost Beatles-esque outro.
"Calalini Rises" might be the heaviest track, murky and muddy, the drums locked tight, tribal and propulsive, all the other instruments loose and chaotic, a constant sonic swirl, totally spaced out and abstract, definitely a song that could have stretched out for another couple hours. But one of our favorite jams might just have to be "Longwave" which sounds like Lumerians at the wrong speed (which we presume it must be), Neu! style, the band unfurl a droney dirgey spacerock jam, slowed to a crawl, the guitars even thicker and grungier than usual, the drums lumbering, but then the vocals come in, and they're perfectly melodic and dreamy, and drift over the undulating psychedelic murk below, culminating in a gorgeously tripped out second half, with lots of rumble and whir and buzz and drone and swirl and shimmer (but be warned vinyl folks, in order to fit the whole album on a single lp, they had to speed this song back up, shortening it quite a bit, everything is essentially the same, just the murky background music is a little less murky). So good.
Seriously. If any of the above bands are your cup of tea, try spiking that tea with some Lumerians, you won't be sorry. Easily, THEE space drone psychedelic hypno rock record of the year. Drop out, and dig in!
MPEG Stream: "Burning Mirrors"
MPEG Stream: "Black Tusk"
MPEG Stream: "XuluX"
MPEG Stream: "Longwave"

LUMERIANS Transmissions From Telos: Vol.IV (Permanent) lp 17.98
It's been ages since we've heard from these local psychedelic space rockers, but it seems like a storm of new Lumerians activity is brewing, records, shows, touring, all starting with this, a brand new 12" which displays a side of the band that always seemed to be lurking just below the surface, but is now revealed for all the world to see. The A side of this 12" finds the band exploring a funkier sound, sounding at times like Bitches Brew era Miles Davis, or Sextant era Herbie Hancock, dense percussion, swirls of wah wah guitar, whirring organs, a little bit spacey, and a little dubby, but loose and free and indeed funky, the second track introduces more buzz, and adds some psychedelic freakout to the mix, getting downright proggy before finishing off the side with something much more drone out and soundtracky, swaddled in woozy fuzzy synths.
The flipside is a whole 'nother kind of beast, a dense buzzy churn, layered and thickly psychedelic, it's on the verge of collapsing into full on noise, but the band deftly corral the sounds into a blackened swirling dervish, that manages to sound like a proggier spacier SUNNO))) before blossoming into a tripped out krautfunk blowout, which in turn transforms into a long outro of creepy synths and scattered percussion, a spaced out cinematic sprawl that is at once haunting and harrowing, melodic and lovely. Great stuff as usual, can't wait for more, and to hear this stuff live!
Packaged in a super striking, heavy stock jacket, and pressed on milky, yellowish/off white vinyl. And yeah, totally LIMITED!

LUNA Close Cover Before Striking (Jetset) cd 12.98
Luna's new seven song collection contains a few odd moments. I along with a couple of customers were sort of startled to hear the first few strains of the Stones' "Waiting On A Friend" with Dean Wareham doin' the ooooh-ooohs. It was a bit... strange. Their version of "Neon Lights" begins with a plink-plonk sound that really made it seems like it was going to be a cover of Abba's "Honey Honey" rather than a Kraftwerk song. The song "Teenage Lightning" however is NOT a cover of Coil's splendid track from Love's Secret Domain nor a Glen Campbell tune, as far as we can tell it's a Wareham original. The rest of the songs are pure Luna bliss, and should please all of their faithful followers. Oh and also included on this cd is a video for "Lovedust"! One gripe though, what's with the half-assed matchbook style packaging? So poorly executed, it's shameful! Not only has that design been done so many times before, but it's been done quite close to perfection by bands like Fuck and Tsunami to name just two. Harumph!
RealAudio clip: "Teenage Lightning"
RealAudio clip: "Neon Lights"
RealAudio clip: "Waiting On A Friend"

LUNA Live (Arena Rock ) cd 16.98
What can we say about Luna "Live"? Dean Wareham has honed and polished every last inch of this band to a positively glowing sheen thus making this a very well-recorded, well-performed live album that in a sense is a 'best of' also. You almost can't tell that these are live - non-studio - performances except for the applause that ends each song. Many of the lovely Luna faves are here. "Tiger Lily", "Bonnie and Clyde", "Anesthesia" to name a few. From 1999/2000 performances in Washington, DC's 9:30 Club and NYC's Knitting Factory.

LUNA Rendezvous (Jetset) cd 15.98
To be completely honest, we didn't have such high hopes for this new Luna album -- their last couple of albums were just too easy-listenin' smoooth for our liking -- but boy, were we in for a pleasant surprise. What's most striking about their new full length is that it has some of the punchiest Luna tunes in ages. For years and years Dean Wareham and Co. have consistently stuck to their same albeit achingly pretty formula, almost as though they were resting on their laurels to the point of becoming a diluted version of themselves. Happily this Rendezvous reveals a freshly rejuvenated band. Even the slower dreamy numbers have a spark to them that's been sorely missed. Occasionally they bear a striking resemblance to recent recordings by Yo La Tengo particularly when Ira sings. In case you're unfamiliar with YLT, rest assured that this is a good thing!
MPEG Stream: "Malibu Love Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Motel Bambi"

LUNA Romantica (Jetset) cd 16.98
The sixth album from Luna certainly sounds all warm and welcoming. And of course it's well-performed and well-recorded like any other Luna release - perhaps partly due this time to the presence of producer extraordinaire David Fridmann (Sparklehorse, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) - if somewhat slick and a bit overwhelming at times. But I have to say, something is just not right here. Maybe it's the uncharacteristic rocked-up number "1995"? No, it's more than that. It's just... blah. One thing's for sure, I know I can't find one song on this Romantica album that can hold a candle to any of Dean Wareham's early genuinely romantic gems like "Anesthesia", "Slash Your Tires" or "California" (and let's not even mention those of his former band). Now, those were some true pop beauties full of reverbed guitar dreaminess and lyrical twists. This is so sadly disappointing. By the way, what's up with the cover art featuring a palm trees'n'sunset disposable lighter? Whose idea was that??? Sorta reminded me of Mr. Bungle's California album (the cover, not the music).
RealAudio clip: "Romantica"
RealAudio clip: "1995"

LUNA The Days Of Our Nights (Jericho) cd 16.98
Finally released domestically, the long-awaited new Luna (long-awaited that is by those who haven't already bought the import that's been out for a year already!) includes a somewhat-questionable (but nice) cover of "Sweet Child O'Mine". Dean Wareham and co. don't break any new ground on this album, but instead continue to maintain their consistent wistful, melancholic songwriting style and lush melodic proficiency found on such past beauties as "Lunapark", "Bewitched", and "Penthouse".

LUNAR MIASMA Observing The Universe (Moon Glyph) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Observing The Universe is the latest komsiche transmission from Greek synth wrangler and ambient alchemist Panos Alexiadis, aka Lunar Miasma, and is another gorgeous collection of spaced out synth drones and slow burn prismatic drift, operating in the same realm as folks like Expo 70, Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds and the like.
The intro track here is the real gem, a dark, brooding, thrum, rife with crackle and buried melodies, a slightly sinister soundtrack to some old light show that for some reason plays endlessly in some abandoned planetarium, the music of constantly shooting stars, every sonic streak here another contrail glowing against the inky blackness of spaces, simple Eno like melodies drifting outwards like ripples in some epic celestial pond. This woozy sprawl parked by what sounds like fragmented transmissions from the ether, the whole thing underpinned by deep rumbles, and thick swirls of blurred low end shimmer. We almost wish the whole tape was filled with an extended version of this track. But while the rest of the record is not nearly as dark, there's much to dig, the two part "Expanded Dimension" is all futuristic synth swirl, and prismatic cascades of analog melody, all hazy and dreamlike, and darkly cinematic, a blissed out sprawl of glistening crystalline sonic glimmer, culminating in the title track closer, which seems to merge the dark ominous thrum of the opener, with the glistening shimmer of the other tracks into the sort of dark, retro synth ambience, that will definitely appeal to fans of Carpenter, Zombi, Umberto, Majeure and the like, but unlike the driving pulsating krautiness and pulsing Euro-disco of those groups, LM's strain hovers much closer to a dreamlike cosmic new age.
MPEG Stream: "Infinite"
MPEG Stream: "Expanded Dimension"

LUNCH, LYDIA / SUICIDE Frankie Teardrop (Blastfirst Petite) 10" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is one of two new entries in the ongoing series of Suicide related 10" singles, celebrating Alan Vega's 70th birthday (despite the fact that he was born in 1948, a mere 60 years ago). Both sides feature versions of the horrific electro-thud masterpiece "Frankie Teardrop" from the classic eponymous record released back in 1977. The A-side is a new cover from like-minded misanthrope Lydia Lunch, screeching out the vocals on top of a monophunk electronic arpeggiation. It's certainly the best we've heard from Lydia Lunch in many, many, many years. The B-side is a demo version of "Frankie Teardrop," which finds Martin Rev's musical accompaniment for ominous, analog synths pretty much worked out, even in demo form, but Alan Vega's story about Frankie Teardrop himself hadn't quite evolved into a tragedy about an everyman whose life just sucks. Instead, Frankie is cast as a Vietnam vet / detective given a particularly unfortunate assignment. It's not as clinically articulated as on the proper album, but has more of a Philip K. Dick vibe going on. Limited to 1500 copies.

LUNDBORG, PATRICK The Acid Archives (Lysergia) book 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two fine record reference works on the list this week, there's the Encyclopedia of Swedish Progressive Music (reviewed below), and this one, a tome devoted American private press musical weirdness from the psychedelic era; its subtitle is "Guide To Underground Sounds 1965-1982". And yes, it's an A-to-Z of bands, each release getting an opinionated write-up, sometimes from more than one reviewer, who don't always agree! Not just psych bands, but also folk-rock, hard rock, "incredibly strange music", sunshine pop, all sorts of stuff. As long as it's rare and obscure and has collectors salivating...
Here's a few of the bands included: Anonymous, BF Trike, Cromagnon, David Allen Coe, Euphoria, Francisco, Josephus, New Hobbits, Charles Mason, Peace Pipe, Ya Ho Wha 13... that's a very small fraction (hey I bet Fraction is in here... let's see, yep) of what you'll find. There's literally hundreds and of entries. Hours of browsing to be had.
In addition to this "Acid Archive" of reviews, which include discographical info on both the original releases -and- (where applicable) reissues, there's some other special features to this volume. You'll find top tens and "fave raves" from the book's various contributors, also a buying guide for collectors on a budget, and a forward by Mike Stax of Ugly Things magazine -- and if you're a dedicated Ugly Things reader, you definitely want this book!!
15 years in the making, this is as authoritative and indispensable as it gets, when it comes to weird music from way back. It's not quite as deluxe as that Swedish Encyclopedia (and not as expensive, either), but still really nicely put together. Paperback, 11 3/4" x 8 1/4", 298 pages, three columns per page of text, lots of cool b&w graphics (album covers, record labels, promo photos). Trippy!!

LUNGFISH A.C.R. 1999 (Dischord) cd 12.98
By now it should be no big surprise that we here at aQ are HUGE fans of Lungfish and its offshoots. In the last few years we've seen an array of solo releases from singer Dan Higgs, and to a lesser degree from guitarist Asa Osborne who records as Zomes. And though we love all that stuff, Lungfish is one of those bands, like say, Fugazi, where the diehard fans just can't comfortably accept the "extended hiatus" thing. And yeah, as indicated by the "1999" in the title, this is in fact an archival release of songs the band recorded prior to their Necrophones album, where six of these songs showed up in re-recorded form. But why would we complain about that? While Lungfish have only ever sounded like themselves, the turn of the century found their approach becoming increasingly psychedelic and more "out of time" sounding, and these recordings, rougher fidelity-wise than their proper albums but still clear and upfront, are essential listening for anyone who considers themselves a fan. The feel here is more like a live recording and it really reinforces what an awesome band Lungfish was/is. Higgs is in fine form as always with his mindblowing lyrics and singular vocal delivery while Osborne's trademark cyclical riffing carries these songs forward into new realms. The always killer rhythm section (longtime drummer Mitchell Feldstein and, on these recordings, bassist Nathan Bell) does what only Lungfish could do, with the bass sounding particularly huge here. And goddamn does this stuff rock. But not, ya know, like Kiss or Led Zep... just in that strange Lungfish way. Whatever the future holds (we're still keeping our fingers crossed), this disc surely hits the spot and comes with an unsurprising but wholehearted recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "Symbiosis"
MPEG Stream: "Sex War"
MPEG Stream: "Shapes In Space"

LUNGFISH A.C.R. 1999 (Dischord) lp 14.98
By now it should be no big surprise that we here at aQ are HUGE fans of Lungfish and its offshoots. In the last few years we've seen an array of solo releases from singer Dan Higgs, and to a lesser degree from guitarist Asa Osborne who records as Zomes. And though we love all that stuff, Lungfish is one of those bands, like say, Fugazi, where the diehard fans just can't comfortably accept the "extended hiatus" thing. And yeah, as indicated by the "1999" in the title, this is in fact an archival release of songs the band recorded prior to their Necrophones album, where six of these songs showed up in re-recorded form. But why would we complain about that? While Lungfish have only ever sounded like themselves, the turn of the century found their approach becoming increasingly psychedelic and more "out of time" sounding, and these recordings, rougher fidelity-wise than their proper albums but still clear and upfront, are essential listening for anyone who considers themselves a fan. The feel here is more like a live recording and it really reinforces what an awesome band Lungfish was/is. Higgs is in fine form as always with his mindblowing lyrics and singular vocal delivery while Osborne's trademark cyclical riffing carries these songs forward into new realms. The always killer rhythm section (longtime drummer Mitchell Feldstein and, on these recordings, bassist Nathan Bell) does what only Lungfish could do, with the bass sounding particularly huge here. And goddamn does this stuff rock. But not, ya know, like Kiss or Led Zep... just in that strange Lungfish way. Whatever the future holds (we're still keeping our fingers crossed), this disc surely hits the spot and comes with an unsurprising but wholehearted recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "Symbiosis"
MPEG Stream: "Sex War"
MPEG Stream: "Shapes In Space"

LUNGFISH Feral Hymns (Dischord) cd 11.98
If you're already a fan of Lungfish, you're familiar with their style of song-craft: each track is sort of like one super heavy, distorted riff that's explored and repeated through propulsive, psychedelic rhythms. This formula is still in practice on Feral Hymns, their 11th (!) album, though they've reached a definite "moment"... Dare I gush, but to listen to this album is to be FULLY immersed in the depths of Lungfish.
This is their first album (since their very first) to be recorded outside of the Discord-related studio, Inner Ear. And we definitely think it was a good move!! Not only does it sound great for being engineered by Tim Green at his San Francisco-based Louder Studio, but the temporary homelessness of the band during this process gave their collective creative mind the ability to breathe, to see their songs from inside and out and to fully sculpt the album as a whole and turn it into a very tangible, albeit visceral, expression.
The Balitmore foursome completely deconstruct each song/"riff" down to its essential elements. Following this, they gracefully rebuild, creating impressively engaging, hypnotic tracks that share an incredibly powerful depth. Dan Higgs' rich, throaty vocals proudly wade through these tracks with a force we all know and love but that force is especially intense, often riled up into an enigmatic, abstracted fury.
Although we thought Love Is Love was their heaviest album at its release, Feral Hymns weighs in far heavier, not really in the quantity of its sound but quality of it. This is an album that is so pared down to its most essential and amazing elements that repeated listenings keep rewarding in different ways every time.
Now, Andee really loves their record Necrophones, and Love Is Love (their last) had some definite great moments, including the addictive opening title track, but on Feral Hymns, the thorough exploration into the 'guts' of each song and the album overall, and the slow and meticulously elegant sonic sculpting of the band as a whole, works so so well it totally blows us away. Amazing!!
MPEG Stream: "All Creation Bows"
MPEG Stream: "Picture Music"
MPEG Stream: "Invert The State"

LUNGFISH Feral Hymns (Dischord) lp 11.98
If you're already a fan of Lungfish, you're familiar with their style of song-craft: each track is sort of like one super heavy, distorted riff that's explored and repeated through propulsive, psychedelic rhythms. This formula is still in practice on Feral Hymns, their 11th (!) album, though they've reached a definite "moment"... Dare I gush, but to listen to this album is to be FULLY immersed in the depths of Lungfish.
This is their first album (since their very first) to be recorded outside of the Discord-related studio, Inner Ear. And we definitely think it was a good move!! Not only does it sound great for being engineered by Tim Green at his San Francisco-based Louder Studio, but the temporary homelessness of the band during this process gave their collective creative mind the ability to breathe, to see their songs from inside and out and to fully sculpt the album as a whole and turn it into a very tangible, albeit visceral, expression.
The Balitmore foursome completely deconstruct each song/"riff" down to its essential elements. Following this, they gracefully rebuild, creating impressively engaging, hypnotic tracks that share an incredibly powerful depth. Dan Higgs' rich, throaty vocals proudly wade through these tracks with a force we all know and love but that force is especially intense, often riled up into an enigmatic, abstracted fury.
Although we thought Love Is Love was their heaviest album at its release, Feral Hymns weighs in far heavier, not really in the quantity of its sound but quality of it. This is an album that is so pared down to its most essential and amazing elements that repeated listenings keep rewarding in different ways every time.
Now, Andee really loves their record Necrophones, and Love Is Love (their last) had some definite great moments, including the addictive opening title track, but on Feral Hymns, the thorough exploration into the 'guts' of each song and the album overall, and the slow and meticulously elegant sonic sculpting of the band as a whole, works so so well it totally blows us away. Amazing!!
MPEG Stream: "All Creation Bows"
MPEG Stream: "Picture Music"
MPEG Stream: "Invert The State"

LUNGFISH Love Is Love (Dischord) cd 11.98
Not sure what it is about this Lungfish record in particular, but whatever it is, it got Allan to come up to see what we were listening to. He thought it was some sixties/seventies psychedelic rock band! While there are definitely elements of that, heavy distorted riffs, propulsive rhythms, and Dan Higgs gorgeously rich and throaty vocals, unlike that stuff, Lungfish take those riffs and repeat them endlessly, no verse chorus verse crap, just one riff stretched into a droning hypnotic riffscape for Higgs to proseletyze over. Melodic and hypnotic and so fierce. In fact this might just be the 'heaviest' Lungfish record yet. Actually you should probably just own EVERY Lungfish record. But this is a pretty great one to start with!
MPEG Stream: "Love Is Love"
MPEG Stream: "This World"

LUNGFISH Necrophones (Dischord) cd 11.98

LUNGFISH Pass And Stow (Dischord) cd 12.98
Everyone should know by now that we're HUGE fans of the legendary Baltimore group Lungfish, not to mention their side projects - Zomes, Pupils, and of course all the solo releases from the band's one of a kind singer Daniel Higgs. Even though they're not technically broken up and hold the title of being the longest running Dischord band ever, we haven't heard so much as a note since 2005's Feral Hymns. And no, this isn't a new Lungfish album, but since Dischord has been going through their catalog and remastering their albums to meet today's standards, we figured "why not?" If there's anything the ol' aQ website could use, it's more Lungfish. It's interesting charting this band's career, as they've always channelled a cyclical sound that hasn't really changed too much except that its become more psychedelic and... shamanistic?... over the years. The one constant is that Lungfish have sounded only like Lungfish. Pass And Stow dates back from 1994, at a point where their punk roots were more prominent and they were definitely flirting with a sound that owed a debt to other great Dischord bands like Rites Of Spring, Ignition, Soul Side, and so on. Still, Lungfish stood out. Higgs could never be mistaken for anyone else and Osborne has got to be one of the most underrated guitar players ever. Serving as the perfect anchor are drummer Mitchell Feldstein and, on this release, bassist Jon Chriest. The no-nonsense Lungfish rhythm section may in fact be the band's secret weapon, because their restraint and super solid ability to push things forward are what make this band so uniquely HEAVY. Like, monolithically heavy, in a way other bands simply couldn't understand. Listening to this band now makes it even clearer how unique they were (and are), especially considering other sounds coming out in 1994. Damn we love this band.
MPEG Stream: "Clearer Than Your Surroundings"
MPEG Stream: "Computer"
MPEG Stream: "Astronaut's Prayer"

LUNGFISH Pass And Stow (Dischord) lp 14.98
Everyone should know by now that we're HUGE fans of the legendary Baltimore group Lungfish, not to mention their side projects - Zomes, Pupils, and of course all the solo releases from the band's one of a kind singer Daniel Higgs. Even though they're not technically broken up and hold the title of being the longest running Dischord band ever, we haven't heard so much as a note since 2005's Feral Hymns. And no, this isn't a new Lungfish album, but since Dischord has been going through their catalog and remastering their albums to meet today's standards, we figured "why not?" If there's anything the ol' aQ website could use, it's more Lungfish. It's interesting charting this band's career, as they've always channelled a cyclical sound that hasn't really changed too much except that its become more psychedelic and... shamanistic?... over the years. The one constant is that Lungfish have sounded only like Lungfish. Pass And Stow dates back from 1994, at a point where their punk roots were more prominent and they were definitely flirting with a sound that owed a debt to other great Dischord bands like Rites Of Spring, Ignition, Soul Side, and so on. Still, Lungfish stood out. Higgs could never be mistaken for anyone else and Osborne has got to be one of the most underrated guitar players ever. Serving as the perfect anchor are drummer Mitchell Feldstein and, on this release, bassist Jon Chriest. The no-nonsense Lungfish rhythm section may in fact be the band's secret weapon, because their restraint and super solid ability to push things forward are what make this band so uniquely HEAVY. Like, monolithically heavy, in a way other bands simply couldn't understand. Listening to this band now makes it even clearer how unique they were (and are), especially considering other sounds coming out in 1994. Damn we love this band.
MPEG Stream: "Clearer Than Your Surroundings"
MPEG Stream: "Computer"
MPEG Stream: "Astronaut's Prayer"

LUNGFISH Rainbows from Atoms (Dischord) cd 11.98

LUNGFISH Sound In Time (Dischord) cd 11.98

LUPINE HOWL The Carnivorous Lunar Activities of... (Beggars Banquet) cd 14.98
Three former members of Spiritualized - Sean Cook, Mike Mooney and Damon Reece - regroup to form Lupine Howl. Brit rock imbued with a very similar swirling, space-y, psych sound, heavy soul influence and bombastic grandeur to that of their previous band, but also quite a bit more synthetic and texturally sprawling. Actually Sean Cook's emotive vocals delivery often brings to mind those of Spiritualized's Jason Pierce.
RealAudio clip: "125"
RealAudio clip: "Planet X"

LUSCIOUS JACKSON Electric Honey (Capitol/Grand Royal) cd 15.98
Does anybody really care?

LUSCIOUS JACKSON Fever In Fever Out (Grand Royal) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Produced by Daniel Lanois.

LUSIFERIININ ARMOSTA Nuolee (Ektro) cd 14.98
This new release on Ektro, the debut from Lusiferiini Armosta (which means just what exactly??? we forgot to ask, though it sounds like something to do with Lucifer, doesn't it?) is yet another remarkable side project of the already quite prolific Finnish band Circle, featuring featuring Circle leader/bassist Jussi Lehtisalo (here playing guitar and singing) along with a rhythm section comprised of Circle's sound engineer Tuomas Laurila on drums, and Eetu Henttonen on bass. Well as you know we're really into Circle and all the various Circle related bands as well, so the more the merrier we say. And, unlike many recent Circle side projects, such as the Steel Mammoth highlighted last list, this ISN'T another entry in their own burgeoning "NWOFHM" movement (though you might guess otherwise from the t-shirts the trio are wearing in the cd booklet photos: Anvil, Motorhead, and Pharaoh Overlord). Nope, though it's plenty heavy and rockin', this isn't any sort of metal, instead Lusiferiini Armosta are a band inspired by '80s and '90s noise rock and punk, with influences ranging from Flipper to Scratch Acid to Drunks With Guns to the Strangulated Beatoffs to obscure Finnish bands we've never heard of before. They also cite both Pissed Jeans and Polvo, and we can hear those, as well.
The band describe themselves as having "one foot on the throbbing jugular of distorted Finnish rock, the other in the tumble dryer of the noise scene of 1980's New York", that works too. The vocals are all in Finnish (with lyrics printed in the cd booklet we can only puzzle over) and sometimes soar in that monkish chant way that Circle like to do, especially in their earlier days. The first track here, for instance, reminds us of older Circle (circa Meronia) mixed with the more angular attack of something like Lubricated Goat, perhaps. The nine cuts here are all pretty darn catchy, Jussi's singing deep and melodic (when not harsh and guttural), alongside chiming and choppy guitar riffs, poppy but powerful, the whole record heavily infused with feedback whine and chaotic psychedelic guitar soloing, the songs often building into noisy, shoegazing blowouts. We could draw comparisons to both Japan's White Heaven and New York's Television.
Imagine if Circle had somehow moved to NYC, in the '80s, jamming with Sonic Youth, hanging with Unsane, maybe eventually putting out records on AmRep or SST. That's Lusiferiini Armosta. Pretty f'n cool! Jussi & Co. never cease to amaze...
MPEG Stream: "Silmat Meikatut"
MPEG Stream: "Kolme Matalaa"
MPEG Stream: "Kultainen Keinutuoli"

LUST FOR YOUTH Chasing The Light (Sacred Bones) 12" 12.98
Latest from this Euro synthwave/gloom pop combo, a three song 12", the new track "Chasing The Light", contains everything we loved about the last LFY full length, a buzzy, murky artpunk new wave creep, all pulsing synths and crooned, almost yowled vox, robotic beats fashioned into some sort of Eurodisco glooom/goth synth pop, swirling and psychedelic, a darkly droning electro-pop dirge. That track gets a reworking on the A side, which transforms the song into something a bit more murky and Skinny Puppy sounding, loads of echo and delay, the whole song seemingly being transmitted though a pillow, the beat more industrial, tranced out, droney and super hypnotic.
The flipside is a sidelong sprawl of gloomy, gothy electro, clubbed up just a bit, a more house-y beat driving the proceedings, but the whole thing still muddy and washed out, the various sounds buried beneath all manned of deathrock sonic grime, a gristle soaked electronic doomscape, that definitely reminds us of some of Dominick Fernow's projects, like Christian Cosmos or Vatican Shadow, which is most definitely NOT a bad thing!

LUST FOR YOUTH Growing Seeds (Sacred Bones) cd 14.98
We first heard Euro synthwave combo Lust For Youth on a witch house mixtape of all places, which sort of makes sense, as the sound of most modern minimal wave synth groups is really not that far removed from some witch house. What we heard was buzzy and murky and washed out and yeah, kind of witchy, but it definitely gave us a taste for these guys (now apparently just one guy), and this new full length definitely hits the spot, fusing classic synth driven eighties pop, modern retro minimal synth music, experimental noise, kosmische synthscapery, and pounding EDM beats into something we find ourselves listening to constantly, and something that every time it gets played in the store, someone comes up to see what's playing.
The bulk of the record is made up of buzzy, dark wave synth pop gems, the synths gloriously distorted, wrapped around lilting melodies, and driving rhythms, the vocals drenched in echo and draped over the top. Just check out "Behind Curtains" which adds some post punk swagger to the otherwise moody swirly synth poppiness. "It's You" sounds like deconstructed Depeche Mode, another sprawl of pulsating distorted synths, woozy warble melodies drifting in the background, a definite kraut-wave vibe, motorik and hypnotic, again those vocals, weary and heavily reverbed, soporific incantations over shadowy synth pop.
Then there are tracks like "We Planted A Seed", which mix in some crumbling distorted noise, and unfurl very retro-futuristic sounding Carpenter style eighties chase scene synthscapery, all tense and dark, and slightly sinister. But then right on the heels of a track like that, a track like "Champagne" swoops in, all old school electro pop, but still, just buzzy and dark enough to retain some sonic malevolence. Imagine Breakfast Club recast as some sort of seventies horror art flick, this stuff could definitely be the soundtrack (there's a bit of Goblin going on too needless to say).
But sonically this is most definitely dark synthwave, slipping into something a bit poppier on some tracks, but then something much darker on others, ultimately culminating in the shadowy kraut-wave groove of "We Got Lost" which even manages to channel a little Suicide into the equation, not to mention some eerie sampled screams of terror, before finishing off with the almost M83 sounding "Neon Lights Appear", those wasted vox, the only thing keeping the track from slipping into full blown synth-gaze territory.
MPEG Stream: "Behind Curtains"
MPEG Stream: "We Planted A Seed"
MPEG Stream: "Champagne"
MPEG Stream: "We Got Lost"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Lights Appear"

LUSTER Besides And Other Rarities (self-released) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Luster is a straight-forward indie rock trio from right here in the Bay Area. Their second album Besides And Other Rarities is high spirited and empassioned in a similar vein to early Sleater-Kinney. Check 'em out.

LUSTMORD Heresy (Soleilmoon) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Believe it or not, Lustmord's Heresy was the first cd I (Allan) ever bought, back in 1990 when it was first released. (Not my first tape or LP, but my first cd -- the second, if I recollect correctly, was either Nirvana's Bleach or Lights...Camera...Revolution by the Suicidal Tendencies...someday I'm gonna do a 'zine on the subject of 'first records purchased', but I digress). I think I'd read about it in some magazine, and was intrigued that it was apparently recorded deep underground in some cave or crypt. These subterranean origins are certainly believable when you listen -- it's dark and deep indeed, an ambient well of sound echoing with what sounds like the cries of buried, ghostly whales, a fog-shrouded hour of droning unease. Haunting, beautiful, something enjoyably scary to listen to alone at night. As the first-ever cd in my collection, of course it's near and dear to my heart, but it's the music that prompts me to tell you it's a great album. We're glad that it's finally now been reissued (in a spiffy digipack, still sporting the fantastic, apocalyptic cover piece "The Great Day Of His Wrath" by English Romantic painter John Martin), all tracks remastered by Brian Lustmord in 2004. Highly recommended. If you're at all into dark/ambient/drone musics, you ought to have one or two or more Lustmord discs in your collection, and I'd say Heresy should be one of them.
MPEG Stream: "Heresy Part I"
MPEG Stream: "Heresy Part IV"

LUSTMORD Metavoid (Nextera) cd 15.98
Perhaps beginning with the soundtracks that Throbbing Gristle supplied to Derek Jarman films and Coil's rejected score to "Hellraiser," industrial culture has slowly been creeping into more and more mainstream venues through its affiliation with film. Brian "Lustmord" Williams' work is certainly no exception as he began his musical career during SPK's most devistating period back in the early '80s and continued with his solo work creating incredibly bleak soundscapes that always seemed to allude to some unmade Lovecraftian horror film. "Heresy" and "The Monstrous Soul" were two of Lustmord's albums that set the standard for the "dark ambient" subgenre of industrial culture. Built upon environmental recordings of catatombs and subterranean passages, these albums manifested deep growling drones, rich not only in their psychoacoustic darkness but in their ability to evoke so much horror out of these dense low end frequencies.
In the mid '90s, Williams followed the lead of SPK's Graeme Revell by working on the sound design for big Hollywood movies. Revell, in fact, is credited with scoring the "Tombraider" soundtrack (amongst 30+ others)... Quite a long way from the autopsy imagery of SPK's "Information Overload Unit!!!" Anyway, "Metavoid" marks the first proper Lustmord album in almost seven years, and the time that Wiliams has spent toiling for Hollywood has undoubtably affected his own work as Lustmord. While the slashing drills and unnerving screeches blast from his gaping drones, Lustmord has laced these already threatening pieces with unneccessarily theatrical synthetic strings and mystical flutes that seem better suited for "Xena" than a Lustmord album. A disappointing return.

LUSTMORD The Monstrous Soul (Soleilmoon) cd 12.98
Lustmord's nightmare aesthetic continues to map out aural manifestations of subconscious terror. "The Monstrous Soul" was originally released through World Serpant in 1990. While the earlier Lustmord records had been acoutic in nature, this time, the digital prowess of Adi Newton (Clock DVA, T.A.G.C.) was enlisted to add a digital clarity to the psychoacoustic malevolence.
"The Monstrous Soul" is a series of
dark ambient environments sounding like some Lovecraftian haunted forest ready to send its trees tumbling on top of any trespassers. Ominous tectonic plods, loops of Crowley's incantations, and samples pronouncing the intention of demonic possession are interspersed between the dark ambient passages rich in deep reverberations. A perfect bridge between the avant black-metal of Skepticism and the dadaist dirges of early Current 93.

LUV MACHINE Turns You On (Rise Above Relics) cd 16.98
The Rise Above Relics label's first two releases -- Possessed and Luv Machine -- are bound to intrigue all fans of obscure, early '70s psych/prog heaviness...we know there's a few of you reading this! And both of these albums were recorded in the magical, mystical year of 1971 that we (well, Allan) is always going on about. The band at hand, Luv Machine, were originally from Barbados, but took their groovy psych-pop hard rock to the UK to try to make it big, revamping the lineup in the process with the addition of a few British musicians replacing members who got homesick for the West Indies. Definitely influenced by Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and sounding to us a bit like another obscure band of the era, The Next Morning (who also hailed from the Caribbean, by way of NYC instead of the UK), they're certainly a fun listen. Not terribly heavy at all, really, but still pretty cool -- cool enough that they became pals with The Sweet, who took 'em on tour to Italy! Yes indeed, a quite funky lil' band with plenty of fuzz guitar crunch and a sunny disposition. There's a few weak cuts, some stuff that just seems a bit "off", but then again that might be intentional weirdness (like the crazy sped-up tape manipulation that occurs at the end of "Maybe Tomorrow", for instance, and the more Jimi than Jimi styled vocals at times). Mostly though this is soulful and psychedelically quirky, a foot-tapping good time, dated but delightful. Imagine if you can a blend of Shocking Blue and the Band Of Gypsies...
This slipcased reissue includes all the tracks from their collector-coveted 1971 album (which boasted some "tasteless", "pornographic" cover art, not used by Rise Above Relics but fortunately at least reproduced inside the thick, heavily text and illustration laden cd booklet), plus six previously unreleased cuts.
NB. the track "Reminiscing" was written by Vernon Pereira of Possessed, and was recorded by that band on their album Exploration.
MPEG Stream: "Witches Wand"
MPEG Stream: "Everything"

LUV MACHINE Turns You On (Rise Above Relics) 2lp 29.00
The Rise Above Relics label's first two releases -- Possessed and Luv Machine -- are bound to intrigue all fans of obscure, early '70s psych/prog heaviness...we know there's a few of you reading this! And both of these albums were recorded in the magical, mystical year of 1971 that we (well, Allan) is always going on about. The band at hand, Luv Machine, were originally from Barbados, but took their groovy psych-pop hard rock to the UK to try to make it big, revamping the lineup in the process with the addition of a few British musicians replacing members who got homesick for the West Indies. Definitely influenced by Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and sounding to us a bit like another obscure band of the era, The Next Morning (who also hailed from the Caribbean, by way of NYC instead of the UK), they're certainly a fun listen. Not terribly heavy at all, really, but still pretty cool -- cool enough that they became pals with The Sweet, who took 'em on tour to Italy! Yes indeed, a quite funky lil' band with plenty of fuzz guitar crunch and a sunny disposition. There's a few weak cuts, some stuff that just seems a bit "off", but then again that might be intentional weirdness (like the crazy sped-up tape manipulation that occurs at the end of "Maybe Tomorrow", for instance, and the more Jimi than Jimi styled vocals at times). Mostly though this is soulful and psychedelically quirky, a foot-tapping good time, dated but delightful. Imagine if you can a blend of Shocking Blue and the Band Of Gypsies...
This gatefold reissue includes all the tracks from their collector-coveted 1971 album plus six previously unreleased cuts.
NB. the track "Reminiscing" was written by Vernon Pereira of Possessed, and was recorded by that band on their album Exploration.
MPEG Stream: "Witches Wand"
MPEG Stream: "Everything"

LUXO CHAMP Luxo Champ: Concert November 28 1998 Albuquerque New Mexico (Super-8 Underground) cd 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hey Rondelles fans. Check this out! More pop from Albuquerque. Boundless bounce and fun. Music for the highschool science or math class geek in all of us.

LYCAON PICTUS s/t (self-released) lp 12.98

LYD s/t (Akarma) cd 15.98

LYMBYC SYSTEM, THE Carved By Glaciers (self-released) cd ep 9.98
Phoenix, AZ's The Lymbyc System bring us instrumental indie post-rock pop with a jazzy lean, a la Tortoise. That said, their ep Carved By Glaciers maintains a looser and slightly edgier sound, thus keeping a safe distance from truly formal post-rock constructions. Low frequency distortion, hints of a Moog-y synth, a Wurlitzer, layers of electronic melody and many incredibly delicate moments form these songs within a generous spatial structure. Very nice guys! May we have another?
MPEG Stream: "Lotan Baba"
MPEG Stream: "Carved By Glaciers"

LYNCH, DAVID Crazy Clown Time (PIAS American) cd 15.98
No one is scary and sexy like David Lynch. Of course, this IS David Lynch, so the phrase "scary and sexy" includes images of some weird dude just standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his dog a la Blue Velvet, more than a bit of violence, and possibly rabbits. Music and sound production have always played large roles in Lynch's movies, from the squirrel-cheeked cabaret number in Eraserhead to Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive, and for much of that span, Angelo Badalamenti has been the primary musical composer and performer. As much as Badalamenti's beautiful piano work is missed, Crazy Clown Time definitely holds its own among the ranks of Lynch's oeuvre: accessible on the surface, but pretty fucking weird when you dig into it a bit.
Lynch follows two basic themes for much of the record: reverb-laden, stark guitar-driven pieces similar in vein to his work in Thought Gang (on the Twin Peaks soundtrack) or the Mullholland Drive soundtrack, and lusher, sometimes faster electronic tracks. The production on the entire record is phenomenal. The lows rumble and the white noise really crackles and everything has this great washiness that doesn't so much blur clarity as it does add depth. "Pinky's Dream", featuring Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, opens the record. Vague imagery of potential car crashes and open mouths is conveyed through Karen O's sexy delivery. The rest of the tracks feature David Lynch himself doing the vocals, sometimes more effectively than others. He doesn't have the greatest voice, but he plays this limitation off well through various effects and by not taking himself too seriously as a singer.
Numerous parallels can be drawn between Crazy Clown Time and Crispin Glover's record The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, the Solution = Let It Be, and not just because they are both records done by Hollywood types of the weirder variety. They both feature clowns (Lynch's title track and Glover's single Clowny Clown Clown). Their vocal deliveries are sometimes uncannily similar, although at times Lynch also sounds a bit like Alan Bishop performing as Alvarius B at other times remarkably like Sparklehorse, both music AND vocals. Both Lynch and Glover like to have a lot of sex and like to write songs about it. Both records also incorporate spoken word. The longest track on Crazy Clown Time ("Strange and Unproductive Thinking", running at seven and a half minutes) is basically a lecture about transcendental meditation given by David Lynch-as-a-computer. At first maybe a bit jarring, the song is actually totally hypnotic in its stream-of-consciousness. Where Glover is overt in his self-deprecation, however, Lynch's humor is more complex and subtle, and overall, Crazy Clown Time commands more respect from its listener.
This record in no way comes off as a vanity project. It is a well-conceived, well-executed piece of art. FYI, regarding the vinyl version: download card? Yes!
MPEG Stream: "Pinky's Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Good Day Today"
MPEG Stream: "Football Game"
MPEG Stream: "Strange And Unproductive Thinking"

LYNCH, DAVID Crazy Clown Time (PIAS American) 2lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
No one is scary and sexy like David Lynch. Of course, this IS David Lynch, so the phrase "scary and sexy" includes images of some weird dude just standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his dog a la Blue Velvet, more than a bit of violence, and possibly rabbits. Music and sound production have always played large roles in Lynch's movies, from the squirrel-cheeked cabaret number in Eraserhead to Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive, and for much of that span, Angelo Badalamenti has been the primary musical composer and performer. As much as Badalamenti's beautiful piano work is missed, Crazy Clown Time definitely holds its own among the ranks of Lynch's oeuvre: accessible on the surface, but pretty fucking weird when you dig into it a bit.
Lynch follows two basic themes for much of the record: reverb-laden, stark guitar-driven pieces similar in vein to his work in Thought Gang (on the Twin Peaks soundtrack) or the Mullholland Drive soundtrack, and lusher, sometimes faster electronic tracks. The production on the entire record is phenomenal. The lows rumble and the white noise really crackles and everything has this great washiness that doesn't so much blur clarity as it does add depth. "Pinky's Dream", featuring Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, opens the record. Vague imagery of potential car crashes and open mouths is conveyed through Karen O's sexy delivery. The rest of the tracks feature David Lynch himself doing the vocals, sometimes more effectively than others. He doesn't have the greatest voice, but he plays this limitation off well through various effects and by not taking himself too seriously as a singer.
Numerous parallels can be drawn between Crazy Clown Time and Crispin Glover's record The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, the Solution = Let It Be, and not just because they are both records done by Hollywood types of the weirder variety. They both feature clowns (Lynch's title track and Glover's single Clowny Clown Clown). Their vocal deliveries are sometimes uncannily similar, although at times Lynch also sounds a bit like Alan Bishop performing as Alvarius B at other times remarkably like Sparklehorse, both music AND vocals. Both Lynch and Glover like to have a lot of sex and like to write songs about it. Both records also incorporate spoken word. The longest track on Crazy Clown Time ("Strange and Unproductive Thinking", running at seven and a half minutes) is basically a lecture about transcendental meditation given by David Lynch-as-a-computer. At first maybe a bit jarring, the song is actually totally hypnotic in its stream-of-consciousness. Where Glover is overt in his self-deprecation, however, Lynch's humor is more complex and subtle, and overall, Crazy Clown Time commands more respect from its listener.
This record in no way comes off as a vanity project. It is a well-conceived, well-executed piece of art. FYI, regarding the vinyl version: download card? Yes!
MPEG Stream: "Pinky's Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Good Day Today"
MPEG Stream: "Football Game"
MPEG Stream: "Strange And Unproductive Thinking"

LYNCH, JULIAN Droplet On A Hot Stone (Underwater Peoples) 7"+cd-r 8.98
Another gorgeous missive of warped hazy dream pop from the guy who is fast becoming a sort of figurehead for that scene, a scene that includes Ducktails, Ariel Pink, Gary War, John Maus, not to mention the more rocking outfits like Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps, Ty Segall, but Lynch has definitely struck out on his own, chucking the reverb and low-fidelity-for-low-fidelity's-sake for something much more melodic and heartfelt, a soft focus classic pop that is as much about song as sound, and which definitely looks to groups like The Kinks, the Bee Gees, the Zombies, and other classic pop combos, but manages to infuse that sound with some of the fuzzy warble that the kids seem to dig so much.
These two songs are no exception, "Droplet On A Hot Stone", is a loping, fuzzy, heart-on-the-sleeve pop gem, lots of fuzzy keyboards, lush vocals, simple spare drumming, jangly guitar, some crunchy buzzy psychedelic melodies, all wreathed in a gauzy sun dappled production. "Nen Vole" dips back into a little bit of the tropical summer flavor that was such a big part of Lynch's former outfit Ducktails, it's the lo-fi pop equivalent of mint juleps on the lawn, a lazy hazy summer afternoon pop drift, acoustic guitars, and still more wheezing keyboards. It almost sounds like Ween, if they were less jokey and more serious about crafting perfect pop. So nice.
And both songs were originally recorded for a full length called Born2Run, which was never released, but is included as a bonus cd-r here, with both the tracks from the 7", but also the rest of that unreleased record, all of which is just as nice, woozy, washed out, fuzzy, softly psychedelic, a little bit tropical, a lot summery and sunshiney, jangly and dreamily warped. And other tracks are definitely more warped than the single's tracks, mostly instrumental, with lots of tripped out production, a sort of Joe Meek meets The Beach Boys vibe, heavy on the experiments, but even the experiments end up being dreamy and hooky and gorgeously mesmerizing. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Droplet On A Hot Stone"