ARTIST: Fulton Lights
TITLE: Fulton Lights
LABEL: Catbrid Records/Android Eats Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 181kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 44m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-03-06
RIP DATE: 2007-01-30
Track List
----------
1. Intro 1:58
2. Thank God For The Evening News 4:18
3. 1,000 Little Eyes 3:32
4. The Sound Of The City 7:50
5. The Monkey On Our Backs 4:35
6. Fire In The Palm Of My Hand 4:30
7. Autumn Anthem 5:52
8. Old Photographs 4:44
9. Breathe In, Breathe Out 5:52
10. The Sound Of The City (Reprise) 1:13
Release Notes:
An album three years in the making, Fulton Lights's eponymous debut ventures
into entirely different territory than its brainchild's previous
engagements--namely, Maestro Echoplex and John Guilt. Though never of Andrew
Goldman's projects prior to Fulton Lights could be deemed entirely
"conventional," his latest offering transcends the earlier attempts at
experimental songwriting, and also asserts his undeniable ability to soon rise
to the highest ranks of the underground.
Goldman calls on an enormous assortment of like-minded creators to lend hands to
his project; former DΣlek DJ Still gets some co-production credit, Aloha's T.J.
Lipple, Jean Cook (of Ida and Beauty Pill), DΣlek's Oktopus, and Karen Waltuch
(collabs with Wilco and The Walkmen) are a few of the names in the talented
ensemble that take Fulton Lights from an ambitious solo project to its
fully-realized, living, breathing state.
Centralized around what the press release calls "minimalist hip-hop, boom-bap"
beats, the disparate elements of Fulton Lights coalesce to create something
cosmopolitan, both in its inner-workings and its aural output. It's a
city-fueled record, with noisy, vibrant soundscapes sounding as if pulled
directly from a Brooklyn night. Multiple stringed instruments appear throughout,
but the focus is Goldman's restrained, ethereal vocalizing and the basal drum
beats. "Thank God For the Evening News," the sarcasm-drenched first song,
balances orchestrated indie pop with a raw hip-hop backbone, while Goldman warns
that skepticism is the only way of approaching our current state of affairs.
"The Sound of the City" is the writer's cry for silence, an end to automation
and industry even if for a brief moment, for the sake of hearing "the absence of
the electric hum/and the sound of the wind blowing through empty city streets."
New York City wears on you, apparently, as Goldman testifies throughout this
record. Despite however much your emotions are tread on, though, there's that
sense of infinity accompanying it, and it's translated to Fulton Lights's debut
perfectly and poignantly. It shimmers throughout, and feels much, much more real
than most things to have come out of the city's hip scene in quite some time.