LULU'S SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWSLETTER
LULU'S SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWSLETTER
UPDATE 4/9/20:
We made a physical catalogue of all our books and zines for you to read at home, check it out here.
Highlight new stock this week:
DOM & ROWLAND - "LAST REFUGE OF A SCOUNDREL" 3xLP
THE GUN CLUB - "FIRE OF LOVE" LP
Plus heaps of restocks from Hyperdub!
Here is the September 2020 Newsletter and Calendar, emailed at the start of the month to our mailing list and sent hard copy with all orders.
Sign up here to receive the monthly digital newsletter.
To read more Lulu's Newsletters, click here.
Featured in this newsletter:
BURIAL FC NEWSLETTER “ISSUE 1” ZINE
PROSTATE "FUNERAL POLITICS" CS
RUDIMENTARY PENI “WILFRED OWEN THE CHANCES” 7”
“RONNIE ROCKET BY DAVID LYNCH” ZINE
THE SHIFTERS “LEFT BEREFT / AUSTRALIA” 7” [AVAILABLE MID SEPTEMBER]
LA SCENES DE LA BOHÈME “STANDING IN THE RAIN” LP
THE AR-KAICS “AR-KIVES VOLUME ONE: SINGLES & UNRELEASED” LP
SLEEPER & SNAKE “FRESCO SHED” LP [AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 25]
SEPTEMBER 2020
Spring is finally here. A time for new beginnings, old friends, creation, and looking out for one another. Even the trees are horny. We couldnt think of a better time to invite you all to be a part of the newest pillar in the Lulu’s Enterprise - the Lulu’s Sonic Disc Club. The LSD Club is a new label through which we plan to funnel the cream of the Australian underground even more directly down your gullets. First up is a release we couldn’t be any more excited to be bringing you - Sleeper & Snake’s sophomore album “Fresco Shed”. More info on that over page. In the meantime we continue to operate online only until it is safe to open, with free postage Australia wide.
Lulu’s loves you. xoxo
BURIAL FC NEWSLETTER “ISSUE 1” ZINE
BURIAL FC, SOUTH LONDON DIVISION
"I don't really go on the internet, it's like a ouija board, it's like letting someone in your head, behind your eyes. It lets randoms in." - Burial
This issue of the BURIAL FC Newsletter we have compiled interviews and writings available online. Brave sacrifices were made so you don't need to compromise your spiritual hygiene. We send this issue out to all Burial FC members who have managed to extricate themselves from the web.
60 pages, cardstock cover with hand cut Burial logo looking onto Sth Lndn street scene, hand numbered /100.
ETERNAL SOUNDCHECK DROP
Liam Kenny, Look!Pond, Meat Thump. Three new cassettes from Eternal Soundcheck present a tapestry of total loner music. Recorded in a bedroom, in a kitchen, and under a bridge respectively, what we have is a patchwork of misery, defeat, cleverness and ambition at work. Each release provides a look into the minds of their creators, both outside of as well as in relation to their other related projects and recordings. It could be redundant to mention that this is all low fi music suitably fitting for tape format, but that’s definitely what you’re getting here. If you like your genius buried beneath layers of sedimentary caveman cassette dirt then these are for you.
AC
PROSTATE "FUNERAL POLITICS" CS
Self-Released
Brilliant tape channeling a bit of Midwest USA hardcore via Italo sewer pipe punk outsider's edge (though it's not worth being overly reductive because this doesn't really sound like any sort of clone). Considering how simple the idea is beneath the layers of scummy noise, it feels refreshingly fucked up. Painfully recorded drum machine going a little too fast or a little too slow, one(?) guitar totally nailing the tones and frequencies lost in Jan's Room and actually doing a great job of keeping up with kick ass and not-boring punk riffs, a bit of black and white noise here and there, who knows if there's even bass guitar, and some screams from the lounge room. This is the tape you don't know how badly you wanted or needed until you hear it. I guess hardcore lives?
AC
RUDIMENTARY PENI “WILFRED OWEN THE CHANCES” 7”
Sealed Records
A musical obituary. A final dirge. A single song. What is at it essence a posthumous release by a dead band who was rather obsessed with lands of deathliness, everything about this is appropriate. Taken alongside their legendary catalogue, this is a brilliant tombstone, but my ever active imagination whispers to me that if this were, instead, the first words uttered by a new soul we would all be swooning over the perfection of the craft, drooling over the prospect of more death to come. Totally killer.
AC
STIGMATISM “STIGMATISM” 7”
Beach Impediment Records
Unity! Agnostic Front! Stigma!
For fans of early NYHC punk and mourners of CBGB’s. Members of Canadian HC usual suss-pex who, y’know, know what they’re doing so, y’know, you know what you’re getting here. Nine songs in under the time it takes to lace your Doc Martens. There’s anthems about anti-violence and also tunes about getting smashed by black leather boots. Yeah, it’s dumb. But that’s a good thing. Stigma(tism)!
AC
GELD “BEYOND THE FLOOR” LP
Iron Lung / Static Shock
It’s appropriate given the Kliq nature of this record review that I’m going to break kayfabe here. I heard this record so many times before it was released. The members of Geld are friends & bandmates. At the time of writing I have, like some of the Kliq (90’s pro wrestling behind-the-scenes stable) had some beer and had some other things (drugs). Without any further ado, here goes... Geld’s latest 12” has been popular overseas. Why? Probably because it’s awesome. I wanted to release it on my own label. It’s rhythmic, catchy and it’s mongrel; very often that’s what one wants from hardcore punk music. At its core stands Japanese influenced swinging D-ish Beat-ish genre-ish riffing, overdrive slams and headbang hooks. These cats practice hard, play hard, and work hard. I honestly am not sure how they do it, but I think pure will and determination have something to do with it. One of them is a budding boxer, one of them is a full time tradesman, one of them achieves impressive powerlifting feats with less effort than most, and one of them is a Muay Thai martial artist who is happy to share their knowledge. Does that sound toxic to you? Check yourself. Keeping with the spirit of peering behind the curtain; I probably don’t adore the artwork direction that Geld went in for this album, but I’ll happily take that L in exchange for the W that is one of the sickest riffs I’ve heard in years (Forces At Work). This shit is infrared. Did you know that’s what the album was going to be called? It’s true. And it would have been fitting - these jams occupy a space suboptic, subliminal, subzero fresh that really does put them on the map in 2020. I feel, somehow, that these frequencies would be even more popular or hyped in their homeland if they weren’t a local group. Why? Don’t ask me. I do watch documentaries sometimes but I’m not a sociologist, socialite, or university graduate. But I do know that the group have honed their craft and smashed almost every live show they’ve played over the last three years. Geld is gold, and “Beyond The Floor” really does wipe the floor with most contemporaries it may rub shoulders with, and it most certainly is a title we’ll see named among the end of year lists. To conclude my shoot review; I won some money gambling on sports earlier (Geld also used to gamble any money from gigs on MMA events to turn their meagre pay days into something more) and I would bet the farm on you vibing this slab hell hard if you’re the sort of sunnabitch who values dynamic punk song structure with the odd Hendrix experience, furious microphone mistreatment, sweat soaked drumming, and, most importantly; the sound of an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell and beyond the floor.
AC
“RONNIE ROCKET BY DAVID LYNCH” ZINE
Electra Cute
"There is a dark land where mysteries and confusions abound, where fear and terror fly together in troubled cities of absurdities."
David Lynch's Ronnie Rocket may be one of Hollywood's most notorious unproduced screenplays. Lynch began working on Ronnie Rocket immediately following the release of Eraserhead in the late 1970s, with the idea being it would be his next picture. It was at this time that Lynch became very interested in sugar, which he called "granulated happiness", and would sit in Bob's Big Boy Restaurant every day and drink chocolate milkshakes and coffee, working on story ideas.
Ronnie Rocket is, in Lynch's words, "about electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair". More specifically, it follows two distinct but related stories; a detective attempting to travel into the depths of into a dark, post-apocatyptic city, and a small, man-made boy who can control electricity and becomes the world's most popular rock 'n' roll star.
Progress on Ronnie Rocket continued in fits and starts over the next ten years, entering into production multiple times before being cancelled each time over producer cold-feet or lack of funds. After the success of Blue Velvet, Lynch got his first serious opportunity to shoot Ronnie Rocket. He signed a three picture deal with the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, of which Ronnie Rocket was one of the planned films, and began pre-production work almost immediately.
In the titular role he cast Michael J Anderson, with a supporting cast of Lynch past and future regulars including Isabella Rossilini, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack Nance, Brad Dourif and Dean Stockwell. He even assembled a band and began writing music with them for Ronnie's performances.
Unfortunately, DEG made some extremely poor decisions in the late 80s and filed for bankruptcy before Ronnie Rocket could begin shooting. Although Lynch has always maintained he would still love to make the film one day, the rights still technically belong to De Laurentiis, so the likelihood of it ever actually happening are slim.
Elements of Ronnie Rocket have since popped up in many of Lynch's later projects. Michael J Anderson would later star as The Man From Another Place / The Arm in Twin Peaks, the band Lynch put together for Ronnie Rocket would write and perform the music for the Pink Room nightclub scene in Fire Walk With Me, and many references to themes, lines of dialogue, and visual elements from Ronnie Rocket would show up again in later Lynch projects (especially Twin Peaks: The Return).
This zine reproduces Ronnie Rocket in its final completed form. Taken from a late '80s draft of the screenplay, it has been meticulously reformatted from the ground up for readability and presented with the utmost respect for the original work. 100 pages with hand stamped covers.
SE
THE SHIFTERS “LEFT BEREFT / AUSTRALIA” 7” [AVAILABLE MID SEPTEMBER]
Captured Tracks
Any new entry into the Shifters catalogue is always welcome around these parts and as we patiently await the follow up to 2018’s excellent full length “Have a Cunning Plan” their latest offering as part of Captured Tracks singles series is no exception.
Kicking off the A side, “Left Bereft” is a menacing stone cold four to the floor stomper that takes a page out of the Cale school of guitar based rock and roll minimalism before collapsing into its own lyrical world weariness.
B Side “Australia” opens with a little electronic psychosis before kicking into an unrelenting acoustic and organ driven take on recent progress. It's reassuring to know I’m not the only one having problems with the NBN.
BH
LA SCENES DE LA BOHÈME “STANDING IN THE RAIN” LP
Minimal Wave
This 2020 re-release is at home on NYC’s well curated Minimal Wave label, but I think it’s apt to say that these bare bones compositions are more playful than the groups you might compare them to. This 1982 recording from dreary London Town essentially was a young man named Anthony’s birthday gift to himself, using the money he was given by his folks to go record somewhere with synthesisers and drum machines that he could not afford himself, he and his buddy Seamus set off for an adventure and laid their poetry to tape. It has the traits you might expect from minimal wave pop noise from that time and place; keyboard jangle, oddball barely human bass lines and programmed drums which any human would not be able to actually play for the duration of a song unless they were a young student content with playing 4/4 for 4 minutes (thank goodness for music machine robots who won’t get sick of playing simple drums... yet!) There is a certain youthfulness which is inescapable, with those actually awful but totally quite alright Sumner-style lyrics, or if maybe Turqouise Days happened to have had a rejected soundtrack for an 80’s teen coming of age talkie, on the whole sounding like a rather decidedly less miserable Eleven Pond. It’s not surprising that the single at the time made it to the top of local radio stations playlists, but not too far beyond that, and it truly is a joy to be transported back to a time when The New Romantics were still floating through the charts, to follow a kid across town, hearing the poetry they so desired to create, feeling the larger world which existed in the inside of their head, in the inside of a tiny bubble, in the inside of London Town.
AC
THE AR-KAICS “AR-KIVES VOLUME ONE: SINGLES & UNRELEASED” LP
Dig! Records
Super cool garage garbage from this scrunchy bunch of Virginian virgins. All the right tones, all the right hooks, and the right moves! So easy to listen to and bust a dance move, cane yourself a beer or a line, or just get equally bummed/stoked as this music is want to do. Classic as hell. If you needed a reminder as to why garage music is actually sick, this is probably it. The compilation format works it’s magic powerfully in this instance, collating and cataloguing tunes in a genre where the almighty 45rpm single is sovereign - so why not dig this gold!
AC
DAME “DAME” LP
Beach Impediment Records
A great soundtrack for when you’d like to ask the world to go away but you aren’t quite sure how. This feels like it might have been the product of an alternate timeline where Black Flag was getting serious radio play, Siouxsie And The Banshees were bigger than The Sex Pistols, and Ian Curtis lived long enough for Joy Division to have, through some weird miracle, been paired on a West Coast tour lineup with Negative Approach resulting in some flowering bodies and impressionable minds being deeply twisted and moved enough to concoct this flesh on the bone post punk. The real world probability is that the members of Dame are adoring fans of early post punk megaliths and hardcore gargoyles, using hard edged repetition for hypnotic effect rather than violent reaction. There’s the traits of melancholy from both genres present, but not mistaking the forest for the trees, you’ll spot solid songwork amongst any aggressive or morose tendencies, arming you with the confidence to tell your boss to get nicked and scorn enemies with a casual scoff.
AC
SLEEPER & SNAKE “FRESCO SHED” LP [AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 25]
Lulu’s Sonic Disc Club
Since their 2019 debut album on Aarght Records, Sleeper And Snake has served as an outlet for Al Montfort and Amy Hill. The upcoming album titled ‘Fresco Shed’ is a dreamy tapestry of music which weaves itself in and out of a unique and sympathetic take on local surroundings; their own special brand of watercolour pop is rich and very much their own.
Like overlaying a scenic photo taken yesterday with a picture of the same scene years ago; or a haze of soft colours laid atop an impressionist portrait; it offers a journeying that drifts off to a similarly recognisable but distant view of the same lands. The artful and varied approach of the pair’s creativity, politics and storytelling make it impossible to tell which came along first, and that’s part of the joy in listening.
Local landmarks, characters and tales sit side by side on the walls of their Fresco Shed; V-Line regional trains, Pentridge Prison, Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance memorial, corrupt handshakes, a farmer full of feeling. These bedfellows dance around lyrically while Sleeper And Snake’s stories and thoughts are pondered over a backdrop of humming, droning, wandering and flighty instrumentation that move around the usual elements of Australian modern pop tunes.
At times bold and experimental, at times ethereal and gentle; the image is there. Like most art worth its while, whether it’s the first or fifty first viewing, Fresco Shed’s message continues to reveal itself upon each interaction.
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 25.
PRE-ORDER NOW AT LSDCLUB.BANDCAMP.COM
Taxes, Shipping & Returns
Taxes, Shipping & Returns
MELBOURNE - INSTORE PICKUP AVAILABLE AT CHECKOUT
AUSTRALIA - FLAT RATE $9, FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $75
INTERNATIONAL - POSTAGE CALCULATED AT CHECKOUT