Tag: Lush

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Lush “Blind spot EP”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Lush
Album Title: Blind spot EP
Year released: 2016
Details: 10″ vinyl EP, 45 rpm

The skinny: For fun, you can consider this here the bonus ‘hidden track’ to my series detailing Lush’s five-disc vinyl box set, “Origami”. Last week, while finishing it off, I mentioned that “Topolino” was their final full-length release. But it wasn’t their final final release. In 2015, just about two decades after their dissolution, the remaining, living members of Lush re-formed, played a handful of shows that went so well that they turned it into a full fledged tour, complete with stops on the festival circuit all over. Somewhere in the midst of all this, they found time to record new material, an EP called “Blind spot”, which name-checked and somehow blended the band’s varying sounds from the distinct eras in their way too short original career. I wasn’t able to make it to the show they did in Toronto, which is too bad because shortly thereafter, they announced their second breakup. Luckily, I managed to score one of these highly sought after 10” EPs at one my local shops because it’s a lovely post script to the music of one of my favourite 90s bands.

Standout track: “Out of control”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Lush “Topolino”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Lush
Album Title: Topolino
Year released: 1996
Year reissued: 2016
Details: yellow vinyl, disc five in limited Origami box set, Record Store Day 2016 release, limited to 2000

The skinny: “Topolino” is the final piece in “Origami”, the five disc box set of Lush LPs that 4AD put out on Record Store Day 2016. And truth be told, of the five records I’ve posted about over the past five weeks, this one is the least likely to hit my turntable on a regular basis. Perhaps a dour way to end the series but even this record has its merits. If you paid attention to the photos of last week’s subject, “Lovelife“, you might notice that the artwork of this week’s record looks eerily similar. The explanation is a simple one. “Topolino” was a compilation of b-sides recorded during the “Lovelife” sessions and as it turned out, it was the final full-length release by the group. Chris Acland, the band’s drummer, died two month’s after its release and Lush disbanded, save for a short-lived reunion almost a decade later… but that’s a story for another time.

Standout track: “Shake baby shake”

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Lush “Lovelife”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Lush
Album Title: Lovelife
Year released: 1996
Year reissued: 2016
Details: pink vinyl, disc four in limited Origami box set, Record Store Day 2016 release, limited to 2000

The skinny: As I mentioned last week, Lush’s third studio album, “Lovelife”, was their Britpop album. Don’t look down your nose at them though. Everyone was doing it at the time. I didn’t mind the change in sound at all because I had gotten caught up in the hype of the scene, just as much as did many of my friends. Still, had you not followed their progression as closely as I did, you might not have recognized this as at all the same band that had us dreaming colours on “Gala” and “Spooky“. Sure, there was some ethereal sounds on “Lovelife” but the guitar driven pop had been amped up and Mike Berenyi’s vocals were without a doubt more obvious here than on any of their previous work. And yeah, she definitely does hold her own in a duet with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker on the tune below. 4AD’s choice of pink for this fourth disc in the ‘Origami’ box set does not just match the colour palette of the album artwork but also feels in line the with the decidedly bubblegum tone of its sound.

Standout track: “Ciao!”