LULU'S SEPTEMBER 19 NEWSLETTER

LULU'S SEPTEMBER 19 NEWSLETTER

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Here is the September 2019 Newsletter, emailed at the start of the month to our mailing list and sent hard copy with all instore orders.

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Featured in this newsletter: 

THOMAS HARDISTY - PEACE IN THE PLAZA LP [UPDATE: SOLD OUT]

NORMIL HAWAIIANS - WHAT'S GOING ON? LP

DRAB MAJESTY - MODERN MIRROR DLP

DISGUISE - BAS FADA 7”

KYOSANTO - COMMUNIST LP [UPDATE: SOLD OUT]

 

Spring has arrived. Read Distort #54. Read Lulu’s Magazine Winter ‘19. Lulu’s loves you.

 

THOMAS HARDISTY - PEACE IN THE PLAZA LP
2017 saw the quiet release of Tom Hardisty's "Reflective Works", a collection of ambient pieces that compiled his home-recording work from 2009 up until that point. It's content came as somewhat of a surprise to those only familiar with Hardisty through his time in punk (and punk-adjacent) bands Constant Mongrel, Nun, Woollen Kits and Leather Towel. Nevertheless, Reflective Works was a triumph; a beautiful, occasionally eerie collection of ambient pieces whose remarkable cohesion did nothing to give away their often vast difference in context of composition and recording.

Hardisty continues the curveballs with Peace In The Plaza; his first fully-formed solo album and an environmental music ode to the great Northcote Plaza. Whereas Hardisty's previous ambient work at times flirted with unease, Peace In The Plaza is a record filled with warmth; calling to mind the works of Inoyama Land or Hiroshi Yoshimura just as much as it does op-shop new age tapes.

Any tongues in cheeks at the album's muse slowly fall away as it proceeds; creating an environment with and for the music to inhabit. By the time you hit Sunrise On The Hill, the album's final track, you can almost feel All Nations Park's cold breeze on your cheek.

 

NORMIL HAWAIIANS - WHAT'S GOING ON? LP

Normil Hawaiians sound like the sparse bits in joy division but with a good singer and a few anarchist travellers into pagan folk and tape experimentation. For fans of Welsh cultural nationalism, Martin Hannett, cummunal living as a force against capitalism (but without the honky dreads/tye dye) and that one real funky amebix demo.

DRAB MAJESTY - MODERN MIRROR DLP

Blowing the dust off the antiquarian myth of Ovid’s “Narcissus”, Drab Majesty uses its premise as groundwork for a modern reinterpretation. Each song tells a piece of the story, in which the listener’s own self-identity has become warped and dissociated through rapidly expanding technology, losing touch with the origins of their own personalities. Setting the stage as a romantic saga of antiquity, “A Dialogue” asks the listener if they are truly in love amid a building wash of guitars and reverb. Elements of classic tragedy weigh heavily in the reflection of Modern Mirror in songs like “The Other Side”, possessing a fundamental sound that is energetic, luminous and hopeful. Fusing the sonic aesthetics of predecessors like New Order and The Cure within the cautious instruction of Greek mythology and modern science fiction, Drab Majesty has birthed a hybrid of dreamy malaise, captured for a future moment..

 

DISGUISE - BAS FADA 7”

Almost four years since the 'Signs Of The Future' 12", Dublin's DISGUISE return with 'Bas Fada'. Six more extremely violent and blown out tracks that sound like the best of Scandinavian and Japanese hardcore punk thrown into a concrete mixer. Ever wondered what was on the other side of that enormous slammed door? Here's your answer. Recorded by the band themselves at the Karate Klub, then mixed by Jonah Falco and mastered at Noise Room Tokyo.
KYOSANTO - COMMUNIST LP •• Feelin' like a broken record baby but Bitter Lake have done it again. This time setting their sights on the gutter and dredging up just about the most mind-blowing, heretofore totally unknown Japanese punk I've heard in years. Kyosanto operated out of Hiroshima from '83 to '85, spitting out two tapes in that time before falling apart (both of which are reproduced in full on this LP). The official bio lists Gauze and The Stalin as two major influences and reference points, and they're all over this but it doesn't end there. These fuckos nail so many different sounds so well that Bradford thought it was a comp on first listen, describing it as "top-shelf KBD level". He ain't wrong. This sold out almost instantly from the label, and we've got some of the very last copies going so don't sleep. ••• ALSO; we have extremely limited copies of all four Bitter Lake cassette releases of longer form, live/demo material from previously released bands on the label. These are also sold out from BL direct, and are each incredible in their own way, so act fast.