LULU'S NOVEMBER 2021 NEWSLETTER

Here is the November 2021 Newsletter and Calendar, emailed at the start of the month to our mailing list.

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Featured in this newsletter:

NICK BLINKO - "ART RETROSPECTIVE" BOOK

NICK BLINKO - "THE PRIMAL SCREAMER" BOOK

TIME FOR DREAMS - “LIFE OF THE INHABITANT” LP

CHATEAU - “I” CS

ISHIYA - "THE LEGEND OF KANSAI HARDCORE" BOOK

ZERO MAGAZINE - "VOLUME ONE" BOOK

CAT FITZPATRICK & CASEY PLETT (ED.) - "MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE: SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY FROM TRANSGENDER WRITERS" BOOK

NASTI - “LIFE IS NASTI” LP

URIN - “AFEKT” 7”

THE ELECTRONIC CIRCUS - “DIRECT LINES” 7”

Hey all <3 <3

We’re back baybeeeeeee! It’s been soooo nice to be able to welcome you in the doors over the past couple weeks. In all honesty having ppl in the shop again has been a dream, and such a beautiful reminder of why we started this thing in the first place.

This month has seen the release of LSD004; Low Life’s opus “From Squats To Lots: The Agony & XTC Of Low Life”, which has been soooooo sick. We couldn’t be prouder of how the record has come out, and have been so excited to share it with you all for so long - it’s a lovely feeling to finally have it out in the wild. If you’re keen on it but haven’t yet indulged, you miiiight want to grab a copy quick; they’re flyyying out the door and it’s looking like we’ll be out of the first press sooner rather than later.

On the subject of the LSD Club, we want to give you all an update on LSD003; Mikey Young’s “Curtains”. We’re so sorry for the delay on this one; extended pressing issues have meant we keep having to push the release back until we can fix the niggling problems. Rest assured once the record arrives it’s going to be ~perfect~, and well worth the wait. The album deserves the best possible presentation, so please bear with us and thanks so much for your continued patience.

On a sadder note, we lost two of our own this month. We were all devastated at the loss of both Liam and Nathan, and our hearts are with all who are hurting right now. Both were vibrant and vital members of our community, and their loss is felt now and will be ongoing.

We love you all. Keep being true to yourselves. We guarantee you are making someone proud. And if you let yourself think about that a few moments longer, you’ll realise that you should be proud of yourself too.

Stay safe,
Lulu’s xoxo

NEW ARRIVALS

NICK BLINKO - "ART RETROSPECTIVE" BOOK
Iron Lung
&
NICK BLINKO - "THE PRIMAL SCREAMER" BOOK
PM Press

Erudite primitivism for the armchair magician, cave dweller and stargazer  alike. Black cats, anarchy, trenches and truncheons; this juxtaposition is the modus operandational palette of Nick Blinko, the principled and mastermind behind legendary dark punk outfit Rudimentary Peni. An essential band for anybody who likes black shirts, Rudimentary Peni may arguably the greatest long-standing punk band. A fanatic of storytelling, Blinko’s tales are totems that transmute darkness and void-bound mental swirlings into opulence. To say his artwork is iconic is about as blatant as it gets, but them lines and stipples are instantly recognisable and cherished by knowing minds. His journey through the decades might be described as a battle, and to these eyes: he won.

TIME FOR DREAMS - “LIFE OF THE INHABITANT” LP
It Records

Dionysus is the God of duality. Both human and divine, at once the God of wine and parties, but also a force of brutal violence and rage. The ecstasy of seeing a live show and writing off your 9 to 5 in the process.  He’s the 4am Jameson shots, and the crushing hangover. Which is why he has always appealed to artists, philosophers and poets. He’s about going right to the edge, confronting the darker self and returning back to the light. Which is a lot like Life of The Inhabitant, the sophomore release by Time For Dreams. “It gets dark but then it gets positive. Think of it as a 40 minute guided meditation” says T4D. Life of The Inhabitant urges you to confront your innermost thoughts head on - the one’s that get pushed down with instant gratification and bad TV, to poke around in the void and see what falls out. And although the world is fucked you might find that “despite resenting many facts of life you enjoy not being dead.”

A lush landscape of reverb, whispered poetry and dub basslines, Life of The Inhabitant is an album whose influences span Caribbean recording studios to Scott Walker to French architects to Mt Macedon. A step away from the humid and sensual world they built in their first album In Time, Life of The Inhabitant was “born of a desire to create something romantic. Not sexy, swoony romantic but terrible/lonely/beautiful romantic.”  Time For Dreams understand that the flipside of romance is loss. This is an album for cold environments, and cold hearts slowly thawing out, aptly released in the early days of Spring.

CHATEAU - “I” CS
Hideotic / Hobbies Galore

It was an inevitable collaboration. Alex Mcfarlane and Al Montfort are two prolific songwriters and producers from Melbourne. They will not stop. The catalogue of their bands includes some of our favourite records from the last couple decades of Melbourne music: Faceless Burial, The Stevens, Dick Diver, Total Control, Straightjacket Nation, The UV Race, Sleeper & Snake.

Chateau is a collection of recordings over the past couple of years and is a perfect collaboration to our ears: the prog pop sensibilities of A Mac, the sumptuous psychedelicism of Snake (Al's solo project).

Fanatics of where Krautrock met Brian Eno will find an easy reference point. Join these two stalwart and loyal doggies of our modern Melbourne underground for a wild journey. Comes with the highest possible Lu recommendations!!

ISHIYA - "THE LEGEND OF KANSAI HARDCORE" BOOK
F.O.A.D.
&
ZERO MAGAZINE - "VOLUME ONE" BOOK
Zero Magazine

Did ya know that Cherry (singer/lyricist for Zouo) lived with Glenn Danzig for a short while in America (Ed: Samhain era) and after returning back to Japan started Danse Macabre - who recorded some gnarly, mid tempo punk slashers? Neither. Until reading Legend of Kansai Hardcore. An infamously insular and protective & protected scene, Japan’s rich tradition of eccentric punk music remains a fascination for keen locals and leering foreigners alike. Any peek behind the veil is a welcome one. Stories of over the top violence, over the top fashion, over the top creativity et al abound. Many of them don’t even sound real. Ishiya uncovers Tokyo’s somewhat unsung sister scene, while Zero magazine brings the colour climax photographic documentation to accompany your imagination. Both punklications have been stitched together by very credible sources. Amongst gems, these are gems.

CAT FITZPATRICK & CASEY PLETT (ED.) - "MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE: SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY FROM TRANSGENDER WRITERS" BOOK
LittlePuss Press

Originally released by the now legendary publishing imprint Topside Press, "Meanwhile, Elsewhere" became an instant classic before quickly falling out of print due to Topside's untimely end; it's reputation only growing as copies became more and more sparse and second-hand editions ballooned into triple figures. Edited by poet Cat Fitzpatrick (editor at Topside and author of the poetry collection Glamourpuss), and Casey Plett (author of A Safe Girl To Love, Little Fish, and A Dream Of A Woman), "Meanwhile, Elsewhere" was the first collection of it's kind to attempt an anthology of speculative fiction by trans writers.

Spec fic, maybe more than any style of fiction, is uniquely positioned to explore the ~potential~ of trans bodies, minds, and experiences. By no means an unworn path, queer writers have often looked to a potential future or alternate world to explore themes or ideas maybe too complex or full of baggage to project onto the current day. Ursula Le Guin's "Left Hand Of Darkness" is well known for it's at-the-time radical explorations of gender, and (in a Lulu's personal favourite) Samuel Delaney took the potentials of the "scare-quote" sex change "scare-quote" to it's logical, ridiculous, fascinating conclusion with his delightfully spicy "Trouble On Triton" in 1976.

As a modern evolution of (and perhaps response to) these explorations, the stories in "Meanwhile, Elsewhere" glisten with their originality, charm, and depth. The prospect of a multi-author anthology is often a daunting one, but Plett and Fitzpatrick have done an incredible job of curation, and as a reault the book feels like a cohesive whole, and has deservingly stood the test of time and remains a modern classic.

Featuring contributions from the likes of Imogen Binnie, Ryka Aoki, Morgan M Page, Sybil Lamb, Jeanne Thornton, and literally twenty other people, "Meanwhile, Elsewhere" is a tome. Lulu's is beyond stoked to be able to offer the book in Australia via LittlePuss Press, a new publishing house started by Plett and Fitzpatrick to (in part, though I'm sure they have lots of other exciting plans), republish the book and make it available once again. Big, huge, enthusiastic recco.

NEW IN FROM IRON LUNG

We landed a huge box from Iron Lung including restocks of Faceless Burial, Geld Cold Sweat, Strong Boys and Electric Chair and some exciting new releases:

NASTI - “LIFE IS NASTI” LP
Destructive manic noisy hardcore.

URIN - “AFEKT” 7”
Psycho d-beat for d-beat psychos! Berlin’s latest and greatest hardcore band.

THE ELECTRONIC CIRCUS - “DIRECT LINES” 7”
Though famous for other things (including doing the synths on GARY NUMAN’s iconic “Pleasure Principal” album and co-writing VISAGE’s massive hit, “Fade To Grey”), Chris Payne brought THE ELECTRONIC CIRCUS to life in 1981 and released this 7” of synth pop perfection that disappeared into obscurity until Iron Lung got behind this reissue. Essential!

LULU’S DIGI MIX: NOVEMBER 2021

Got another mix of hot hits from the racks compiled by Yas.
Spotify freakz can cop...

... or alternatively cop it at...

Suss the tracklist below...