-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Ambient * Ethereal *
Artist..: All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors
Album...: Turning Into Small
GENRE....: Indie
STYLE....: Shoegaze, Indie Rock, New Wave
LABEL....: Gern Blandsten SCENE.....: 2015-02-06
BITRATE..: 279 kbps avg STORE.....: 1998-00-00
ENCODER..: LAME 3.98.4 -V0 TRACKS....: 10
SIZE.....: 85.59MB SOURCE....: CD
URL..:
- TRACKLIST
1 You Can Never Tell 3:31
2 Your Imagination 7:46
3 Puzzled Into Pieces 3:51
4 Lattershed 4:48
5 When Things Come Falling 3:42
6 In Between And After 3:18
7 False From Above 2:54
8 Snowflake Eye 3:26
9 Emergency Turn Off 4:40
10 Paradigm Somehow 4:46
Total Playtime: 42:42
Bio:
All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors revolved around the two-fold songwriting and
musical genius of childhood friends Steven Doherty and Joshua Booth. The
other members added the icing on the heavily layered cake, but the true heart
lay in Doherty's and Booth's incredible sense of pop hooks married with a
taste for the experimental. All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors have been
compared to My Bloody Valentine and Stereolab. But unlike the aforementioned
artists, "L&L" hail from New Jersey of all places.
First appearing in 1996 (then reissued four years later with extra tracks),
the self-titled debut CD found the quintet in more direct form than on later
outings. It's another of many American releases that show that dream pop
didn't die, it just switched continents. In 1998 they released Turning Into
Small, garnering some positive reviews and endorsements from respected
artists such as Cornelius. They toured and gained a small, but growing cult
following helped by the exposure of playing with other artists on the Gern
Blandsten roster such as Chisel, The Van Pelt, and The Rye Coalition.
Longtime Gern affiliate Alap Momin had been their recording engineer since
1994 and his new project, dalek would prove to have a significant impact of
the recordings.
Straight Blue Line, a collection of early U.S. singles and previously
unreleased tracks came along after the band had already called it a day in
2000. Members have continued to create music with If When, dalek, and Jett
Brando.
*
Another of the many fine American releases that show that dream pop didn't
die, it just switched continents, Turning Into Small finds All Natural
blissing out with the best of them. The cascading guitars aren't just
reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine (though generally with a lighter, brighter
tone), but A. R. Kane, early Boo Radleys, Kitchens of Distinction, and many
others. Those who demand a little something more original might be better off
with Flowchart's Cumulus Mood Twang, say, but as it stands, Turning Into
Small is manna from heaven for those who value plenty of feedback, sweetly
delivered. "You Can Never Tell" starts everything out right on that front,
with extra instrumentation here and there adding to the calm chaos, and from
there the group tries out various approaches, shuffling funk beats, swoony
psych drones, and whatever else will fill the bill. For all that the genre
has a perceived problem with direct melodies, All Natural sneak in some
memorable riffs along the way without calling attention to them, like on
"Lattershed," which has some definite hints of New Order. The intense,
repetitive core melody on "Snowflake Eye," meanwhile, adds to the low-key
nervous psychosis of the song as a whole, making it an underrated highlight.
Often it's individual moments or elements that really send everything to
heaven, often created on keyboards on top of the guitars. "Your Imagination"
is pleasant enough, but with the slow up-and-down synth wash starts taking
over toward the end, it becomes vast, spiraling, a candy-colored sonic
heaven. Other instances where keys add just as much as the feedback include
"When Things Come Falling," one of the strongest numbers on the album with
its ever-increasing wall of sound, and the overlaid work and sudden
to-the-fore notes on "Emergency Turn Off."
*
Released in 1998, the second and unfortunately final album by American
shoegazers All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, ôTurning into Smallö is a
masterpiece of shoegaze, with an incredible psychedelic edge and incredibly
degrees of creativity making it one of the most underrated shoegaze albums
IÆve heard.
With a definite influence from the legendary My Bloody Valentine, All Natural
Lemon and Lime Flavors play a very vibrant and bright type of Shoegaze, but
with their own distinct style. With swirling guitars, and laid back almost
indecipherable vocals ala Bilinda Butcher, the bandÆs influences are obvious
from the outset, but they add influences from elsewhere including psychedelic
rock and electronic music, and combine it all with their own creative and
experimental outlook to produce a stunning album of psychedelic soundscapes,
walls of distortion, and swirling guitar effects which take the listener on
an extremely colourful trip.
ôYour Imaginationö is possibly the best piece of shoegaze IÆve ever heard.
With psychedelic guitar melodies built around delicious swirls of distortion
and powerful electronics, as well as beautiful vocals, it really builds a
soundscape like no other. Taking a heavy does of psychedelia and mixing it
with shogazey guitar effects, itÆs absolutely magical, and trippy as hell.
The resulting wall of noise is huge, swirly, distorted, messy and just
beautiful. Colourful and vivid, these lemon and lime flavors seem far from
natural, rather they are laced with powerful hallucinogenics. Puzzled into
Pieces is another brilliant track, with more of an electronic basis, but with
a healthy does of walls of distortion, swirly guitars and such seamless
variation from one musical idea to the next, itÆs absolutely awesome. ôWhen
Things Come Downö has an absolutely beautiful melody running through it,
shiny and sparkly, mixed in with a wall of noise, and hazy, trippy vocals,
while ôIn Between and Afterö is one of the most fantastic experimental music
gems out there. ôSnowflake eyeö has beautiful strings (albeit synthesied)
running through it, imbuing a sense of drama to another track, mixed with
more swirly guitar effects. Throughout the album the bandÆs seamless mix of
ideas, and immense levels of creativity hold the listenerÆs interest from
start to finish, and with so much going on at all times you notice so much
thatÆs new with every listen. Moving from soft dreamy melodies to messy walls
of distortion, to sections of electronica, and most often all this and more
at the same time, All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors are simply incredible,
and their lack of success and relative obscurity is absolutely criminal for a
band as talented and imaginative as them. It might be blasphemous to most
Shoegaze fans to say it, but it may even be better than My Bloody ValentineÆs
1991 album Loveless, almost unanimously described as the pinnacle of the
genre.
This album is for anyone who enjoys My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver, but
wants an extra dose of sweet sounding psychedelia, and it is sure to take you
on a trip through guitar swirls and colourful soundscapes, it really is a
very visual album. For any shoegaze fan whoÆs sick of band after band aping
the Loveless sound with a lack of originality or spark, make sure to listen
to this incredibly inventive album. If weÆre lucky, perhaps with the recent
reunions of Shoegazers Slowdive, and the eventual album release last year of
My Bloody ValentineÆs follow up to Loveless after a 22 year gap, we might
even see a reunion of this fantastic band in the near future. LetÆs hope so!
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
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