Edamame
The sky is bright blue, adrift with white motherships of the imagination – an inbound vision on which the shimmering haze of this recent four-tracker from Lush glides. Blind Spot marks a welcome return to the fray after the tragic death of their drummer halted their desire to continue far too many years ago.
Listening to this handsomely designed EP (something
Chris Bigg of
4AD fame has done an excellent job of encapsulating) — honestly, it’s as if they never went away
– that distinctive “even if blindfolded you could tell it was them” be-jangle cusping at that ever-so breathless delivery, its prism(ed) harmonia
holding you to its enraptured heart as winter branches still stretch their naked arms to heavens. It’s a promise of summer that hooks you up to “Out Of Control”‘s singable rebirth, a sway-hey sycamore spinning eternal, reminding me of
Spooky-era classics like “Monochrome” or “Thoughtforms”, an unsure love song with a light-shoegazery frosting.
The twilight-shifting hues of “Lost Boy” swoops in next, a sad song documenting a lucid dream
Miki Berenyi had of Lush’s late drummer
Chris Acland. The cello and violin sliding the syllables, everything
pointedly drumless, guitars chiming metallically whilst Miki narrates the dream’s sense of realness, then keeling in sweeps of percussion after the diminishing lyrics “Now I’ve lost you” vaporise and bring in the realisation it was a just dream and the all too real void that envelops the following words.
The pop melodics of “Burnham Beeches “clears away the sorrowful in tempo(ing) ooooh-oooh sweetness. A harmony-filled joy, its breezy canter accented in tapering trumpet, before dipping into the reflective once more with the closing “Rosebud”. Here, Miki’s liquid solace is all “Papasan”-like, harmonically shadowed by Emma Anderson‘s backing vocals, the surfing strum, a steady gossamering repeat like light diffused through coloured glass. The undertowing strings and bass a spread hand lightly stapled in soft patter that increases shivering in smooth-hounds of vocal.
A warm welcome back, and I’m looking forward to seeing them live sometime soon.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
The sky is bright blue, adrift with white motherships of the imagination – an inbound vision on which the shimmering haze of this recent four-tracker from Lush glides. Blind Spot marks a welcome return to the fray after the tragic death of their drummer halted their desire to continue far too many years ago.
