| Lavender Flu — Mow the Glass (2018) |
Lavender Flu — Mow the Glass (July 6, 2018)
Editorial Reviews
↑↓★↑↓ Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release. Mow The Glass was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One can hear it in the music: the Oregon coast, the dream life of an Axolotl, the open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar. Heavy Air, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris Gunn (The Hunches) on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill. This album is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. Thirty~five minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn’t deal in nostalgic regression or self~conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu.
Location: Portland, Oregon
Album release: July 6, 2018
Record Label: IN THE RED
Duration: 34:18
Tracks:
01 Follow the Flowers 2:37
02 Dream Cleaner 2:49
03 Leaking Past 2:35
04 Reverse Lives 2:56
05 Ceiling of Skin 1:48
06 Like a Summer Thursday 2:44
07 A Raga Called Erik 1:13
08 You Are Prey 2:17
09 Floor Lord 1:44
10 Just Like Anything 2:46
11 Distant Beings 3:23
12 Demons in the Dusk 2:51
13 Ignorance Restored 4:35d
Description:
↑↓★↑↓ The new Lavender Flu album, “Mow the Glass”, was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. You can hear it in the music. The Oregon Coast. The dream life of an Axolotl. The open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours; as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar.
↑↓★↑↓ “Heavy Air”, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill.
↑↓★↑↓ “Mow The Glass” is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. 35 minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn’t deal in nostalgic regression or self conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu.
↑↓★↑↓ Or maybe Ursula K. Le Guin whispering to James Tiptree Jr. in heaven:
↑↓★↑↓ Follow the Flowers. They lead to a field of knives. Look to the Sewer. It’s there where your teacher lies.
↑↓★↑↓ This music will crawl through your mind. Palpitating off the walls of incandescent android phone lights and lonely aching web pages. Streaming through reverse lives, lost in endless coded corridors, hallucinating connections to other humans via bitrate embrace.
↑↓★↑↓ The enemy is everywhere.
↑↓★↑↓ Mow the Glass. Return to me.
Label: https://intheredrecords.com/
Review
Words by Cal Cashin, Score: 8/10
↑↓★↑↓ Starting out as the bedroom project of Chris Gunn, formerly of Portland scuzz~lords The Hunches, Lavender Flu’s second album sees Gunn’s vision expanded and more fully realised than ever before. ‘Mow the Glass’ showcases Gunn’s exceptional melodic sensibilities, as his new~formed quartet create a sound that combines the hypnagogic vibe of Ariel Pink with an ear for beautiful guitar melodies that very few people can boast.
↑↓★↑↓ Every track comes in at under 3 minutes (bar closer ‘Ignorance Restored’), and adheres strictly to pop conventions, but this does not restrict Lavender Flu — it simply creates order and reason in the otherwise hazy, crazy world that this record inhabits.
↑↓★↑↓ ‘You Are Prey’ is perhaps the most interesting track on the record; through Gunn’s foggy, lethargic textures, punk tropes chisel at the weighty psychedelic swelling before the song gives way to an exhaustive waltz. Meanwhile, ‘Just Like Anything’ has all the marks of a Nuggets~style garage~pop classic, the desert winds of the 13th Floor Elevators and the ornamental twang of The Seeds particular reference points for the group.
↑↓★↑↓ Lethargic, lysergic guitar pop from the very depths of skaters’ bedrooms seems to be one of the most commonly practiced genres these days, and many records of this ilk are simply too washed out and tonally similar to really engage with. ‘Mow the Glass’, however, sticks out like a sore thumb. Fantastic songwriting, gorgeous textures and occasionally guitar wizardry, Chris Gunn and Lavender Flu have created a truly enthralling album. ↑↓★↑↓ https://www.loudandquiet.com/
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| Lavender Flu — Mow the Glass (2018) |
↑↓★↑↓ Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release. Mow The Glass was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One can hear it in the music: the Oregon coast, the dream life of an Axolotl, the open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar. Heavy Air, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris Gunn (The Hunches) on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill. This album is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. Thirty~five minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn’t deal in nostalgic regression or self~conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu.
Location: Portland, Oregon
Album release: July 6, 2018
Record Label: IN THE RED
Duration: 34:18
Tracks:
01 Follow the Flowers 2:37
02 Dream Cleaner 2:49
03 Leaking Past 2:35
04 Reverse Lives 2:56
05 Ceiling of Skin 1:48
06 Like a Summer Thursday 2:44
07 A Raga Called Erik 1:13
08 You Are Prey 2:17
09 Floor Lord 1:44
10 Just Like Anything 2:46
11 Distant Beings 3:23
12 Demons in the Dusk 2:51
13 Ignorance Restored 4:35d
Description:
↑↓★↑↓ The new Lavender Flu album, “Mow the Glass”, was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. You can hear it in the music. The Oregon Coast. The dream life of an Axolotl. The open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours; as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar.
↑↓★↑↓ “Heavy Air”, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill.
↑↓★↑↓ “Mow The Glass” is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. 35 minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn’t deal in nostalgic regression or self conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu.
↑↓★↑↓ Or maybe Ursula K. Le Guin whispering to James Tiptree Jr. in heaven:
↑↓★↑↓ Follow the Flowers. They lead to a field of knives. Look to the Sewer. It’s there where your teacher lies.
↑↓★↑↓ This music will crawl through your mind. Palpitating off the walls of incandescent android phone lights and lonely aching web pages. Streaming through reverse lives, lost in endless coded corridors, hallucinating connections to other humans via bitrate embrace.
↑↓★↑↓ The enemy is everywhere.
↑↓★↑↓ Mow the Glass. Return to me.
Label: https://intheredrecords.com/
Review
Words by Cal Cashin, Score: 8/10
↑↓★↑↓ Starting out as the bedroom project of Chris Gunn, formerly of Portland scuzz~lords The Hunches, Lavender Flu’s second album sees Gunn’s vision expanded and more fully realised than ever before. ‘Mow the Glass’ showcases Gunn’s exceptional melodic sensibilities, as his new~formed quartet create a sound that combines the hypnagogic vibe of Ariel Pink with an ear for beautiful guitar melodies that very few people can boast.
↑↓★↑↓ Every track comes in at under 3 minutes (bar closer ‘Ignorance Restored’), and adheres strictly to pop conventions, but this does not restrict Lavender Flu — it simply creates order and reason in the otherwise hazy, crazy world that this record inhabits.
↑↓★↑↓ ‘You Are Prey’ is perhaps the most interesting track on the record; through Gunn’s foggy, lethargic textures, punk tropes chisel at the weighty psychedelic swelling before the song gives way to an exhaustive waltz. Meanwhile, ‘Just Like Anything’ has all the marks of a Nuggets~style garage~pop classic, the desert winds of the 13th Floor Elevators and the ornamental twang of The Seeds particular reference points for the group.
↑↓★↑↓ Lethargic, lysergic guitar pop from the very depths of skaters’ bedrooms seems to be one of the most commonly practiced genres these days, and many records of this ilk are simply too washed out and tonally similar to really engage with. ‘Mow the Glass’, however, sticks out like a sore thumb. Fantastic songwriting, gorgeous textures and occasionally guitar wizardry, Chris Gunn and Lavender Flu have created a truly enthralling album. ↑↓★↑↓ https://www.loudandquiet.com/
•■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■••■