Lol Tolhurst (founding member and ex-drummer of The Cure), Budgie (former Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer) and former guitarist for the Dublin garage/punk band Compulsion and producer Jacknife Lee have formed a supergroup trio and release the fruits of their endeavours in an album entitled ‘Los Angeles’ this month. The album was originally conceived as being instrumental but after utilising the talents of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy , the trio decided to invite a string of guest musicians on the album. They all wrote lyrics for their respective tracks, except for `Train with No Station` which has lyrics written by Tolhurst and his son Gray. The guests were encouraged to interpret the material given to them, unrestricted outside of the group’s general idea of the record’s style and themes. The album has the subject of the city of lights, Los Angeles at its heart.
The album opens with ‘This Is What It Is (To Be Free)’ which features Bobby Gillespie from Primal Sream on vocals and it`s a fairly hypnotic trippy, spaced-out offering with some orchestrated strings towards the end of the track. Title track ‘Los Angeles’ allows LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy full reign, and he comes across as a kind of preacher with a message that has to be shared as there`s a time limit or constraint. The number itself had a kind of Creatures vibe about it.
‘Uh Oh’ has Starcrawler`s vocalist Arrow de Wilde and Idles` guitarist Mark Bowen guesting and it`s a thumping, pounding, almost tribalistic hypnotic trance like composition. Bobby Gillespie reappears on ‘Ghosted At Home` another delightfully spellbinding psychedelic-tinged journey.
‘Train With No Station’ is an instrumental soundscape with U2`s The Edge adding his talents to this fairly mesmerising voyage. Lonnie Holley, sometimes known as the Sand Man, an American artist, art educator, and musician along with classically trained harpist Mary Lattimore add their talents to the rhythmic ‘Bodies’. Most of the track is built around Holley`s weather beaten vocals with a thumping pulsing beat up until the last ninety seconds or so where the harp adds a stunningly surreal ambience.
‘Everything And Nothing’ is a further instrumental which moves at a fairly fast pace and includes snippets of birdsong over it`s cacophony of drum patterns. American jazz trumpeter, composer, and vocalist Pam Amsterdam guests on ‘Travel Channel’ and shares a spoken word stream of consciousness over a kind of laid back night time auditory landscape with intermittent trumpet tones sliced through.
‘Country of the Blind’ is Bobby Gillespie`s final vocal contribution and it`s a thoughtful musing laid over a sympathetic ambient melody. We have an eighty-eight second auricular instrumental deviation in ‘The Past (Being Eaten)’ a kind of respite between songs.
‘We Got To Move’ has Isaac Brock, lead singer, songwriter, guitarist, and banjoist for Modest Mouse adding his anxious and frantic tones to this fast-moving piece which opens with a kind of Middle Eastern vibe. The Edge returns on ‘Noche Ocsura’ or dark night of the soul and the instrumentation shared really mirrors what is for some an extremely difficult and painful period in one’s life.
The album closes out with ‘Skins’ where LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy returns and adds his voice to this really eclectic piece that rises and falls, speeds up and slows down, sways and staggers but remains delightfully absorbing throughout.
I found `Los Angeles` an engrossing listen which if you`ve got just under an hour to space would be well worth every bit of the time spent allowing it to enter your life to overwhelm and absorb your very soul.
Rating 8.5 /10
