-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Lorelle Meets The Obsolete
ALBUM...: Balance
GENRE...: Psychedelic Rock
STYLE...: Shoegaze, Drone, Alternative Rock, Noise Pop, Space Rock Revival
YEAR....: 2016
LABEL...: Sonic Cathedral
COUNTRY.: Mexico
PLACE...: Ensenada, Baja California
FORMED..: 2010, Guadalajara, Jalisco
VOCALS..: English, Spanish
ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0
BITRATE.: 268 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 9
SIZE....: 82.20 MB
URL..: https://www.facebook.com/obsoletelorellemusic
https://obsoletelorelle.bandcamp.com/album/balance
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/lorelle-meets-the-obsolete/balance.p
https://fragmentedflaneur.com/2016/07/17/album-review-balance-by-lorelle-meets-the-obsolete
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/13/lorelle-meets-the-obsolete-de-facto-review
https://psychedelicscene.com/2023/07/17/datura-by-lorelle-meets-the-obsolete-album-review
https://www.silentradio.co.uk/09/30/live-lorelle-meets-the-obsolete-29092016
https://www.andrulian.com/review-of-balance-lp-by-lorelle-meets-the-obsolete-on-captcha-records-and-sonic-cathedral
https://www.backseatmafia.com/psych-insight-album-review-balance-by-lorelle-meets-the-obsolete
https://remezcla.com/features/music/lorelle-meets-the-obsolete-balance-interview (Interview)
- TRACKLIST
1 Balance 4:31
2 It Must Be The Only Way 5:20
3 Ching 4:34
4 The Sound Of All Things 6:21
5 Waves Over Shadows 3:54
6 La Distinción 4:42
7 Father's Tears 4:48
8 Waves Under Shadows 3:03
9 Eco Echo 5:26
Total Playtime: 42:39
Uncut - There's still a preponderance of fuzzy guitars--notably on "Ching,"
where they almost overwhelm Lorena Quintanilla's vocals--but elsewhere, as on
"It Must Be The Only Way," her dreamy vocals provide a welcome contrast to
droning guitars. [Oct 2016, p.32]
*
Mexican duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete return with their fourth album,
Balance , which is released on September 16 via Captcha Records and Sonic
Cathedral. Balance was recorded by the band at their home studio, before
being mixed by Cooper Crain (Cave, Bitchin Bajas) at MINBAL in Chicago and
mastered in Melbourne by Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression
Ring). The title track and opener blows away the layers of dusty psych from
2014's Chambers , the duo's previous album, to reveal a sparse and spare
sound, embellished with new wave keyboards that wouldn't sound out of place
on one of the early Magazine albums; The Sound Of All Things is a mini-epic,
opening with a two-and-a-half-minute soundscape, before roaring into life; La
Distinci n is a driving drone-rocker, not dissimilar to What's Holding You?
but with the addition of a surprisingly soulful chorus. Lorelle Meets The
Obsolete count Robert Smith, Mani and Sonic Boom among their fans, but the
most enthusiastic is Henry Rollins. Here's what he said about Balance : 'It
lives up to its name by achieving a balance between fuzz and clarity, nuance
and throttle. The mix, which is incredible, utilises the brilliance of the
component parts of each song, with a subtlety and dexterity that is not
nearly as frequent in the albums that came before. It feels more like there
was such an accumulation of captured dreams and their interpretation, that
eventually it filled an album.' Tracklisting: 1. Balance 2. It Must Be The
Only Way 3. Ching 4. The Sound Of All Things 5. Waves Over Shadows 6. La
Distinci n 7. Father's Tears
*
Guadalajaran kraut/psyche-rock duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete manage to blow
some of the cobwebs away, re-energise and bring grit back to the genre with
Balance, literally. La Distinci n sonically paints a world where Tarantino
directed Austin Powers with big band psychedelic groove meeting mexican
stand-off like tension.
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete make light psych rock for pure hearts. Their music
might get fuzzy, but only insofar as your heart might after a nice
compliment. The distortion is bright and joyous, the melodies are nice and
sweet and the synths are a treat. There is, occasionally, a kinda industrial
drumbeat (damnit, "Ching"), but we'll ignore that for the sake of this
paragraph's general narrative thrust and say that this record is to be
enjoyed by fans of Ulrika Spacek and Broadcast -- a slightly weird,
occasionally off-kilter record that's otherwise quite right for the sunshine.
"Balance" is one of the year's loveliest openers, a beaming synth chord laid
over some extra melodies and a jangling bit of guitar that seems to be
enjoying proceedings just fine. From therein, please enjoy the grab-bag of
inventive ways to have a nice time: "The Sound of All Things" uses stuttering
electronics and outdoorsy field squawkings to create a sort of
laboratory-generated nature drone that eventually curves into a proper
distorted rock groove, reminding me of Cryptograms-era Deerhunter with its
warped nostalgia pop. Distortion takes the lead on "La Distinction", where
off-beat guitar chords provide a lovely bit of dynamic respite from the
weirdo psych antics.
It's a nice mix of pretty soundscaping, old-school game synth bleat and
vintage-as-new rock antics -- it sounds like Lorelle Meets The Obsolete are
in love with psych rock bands who are in love with older rock bands,
embedding a peculiar type of meta into the dreamy melodies of "Waves Under
Shadows". It should appeal to anyone who enjoys emotive rock, pushed slightly
out of position.
*
After quickly bashing out their second album, Chambers, over a few days' time
in a Chicago studio, Mexican duo Lorelle Meets the Obsolete decided to go for
something more homegrown and organic for their next effort. Lorena
Quintanilla and Alberto Gonzalez relocated to the Baja California Peninsula
and slowly began working on a new album. Their previous albums were murky
dispatches of lushly psychedelic, blown-out guitar heaviness that were sure
to satisfy sonic travelers wondering what it would have sounded like if Loop,
Broadcast, the Warlocks, and Spacemen 3 all got together for an epic jam
session. This time out, the duo took a (small) step back from the cloudy
abyss by tightening up the production, boosting Quintanilla's honey-sweet
vocals in the mix, and adding loads of vintage synthesizers to the
arrangements. There are still tracks heavy enough that they'd need two
powerlifters to get them off the ground; the bubbling witch metal "It Must Be
the Only Way" and the subaquatic "Waves Under Shadows" certainly qualify and,
if not for the synths, would have fit in on previous records just fine. Added
to their core competencies are tracks like the half synth soundscape, half
motorik workout "The Sound of All Things" and the pastoral freak folk ballad
"Father's Tears," which apply everything they know about sound design and
dynamics in new, exciting ways. It's always satisfying when bands take a step
outside their established boundaries and take chances, even more so when it
works out as well as it does on Balance. The best moments are when the new
and old collide in Technicolor bursts of sound, like on the roiling "Ching,"
where the keyboards and guitars battle for sonic supremacy while the hypnotic
rhythm lulls you into a trance. Or on "Balance," where the spaces between the
notes loom as large as the notes themselves and the synth hovers over the
choppy melody in ways that bring to mind Opal at their best. Or on the almost
poppy "La Distinci n," which shows off some serious synth game and the
gnarliest guitar sound on the record. Because it's not just about the keys;
the duo's love of huge, fuzzy guitars hasn't dimmed and anyone who shares
that love will find Balance to be something pretty special. So will lovers of
psychedelic music, fans of dream pop, shoegaze aficionados, and people who
want music that will remind them of the past, but take them somewhere new.
*
Forever upholding the congregational faith for the latterly vindicated and
reinvigorated sounds of vintage shoegaze, krautrock and noise-rock during its
existence to date, London's Sonic Cathedral label has overcome plenty of ups
and downs (notably a devastating distributor warehouse fire and
pressing-plant congestion battles) to keep its leading benevolent
proselytisers in touch with their devout followers. Having given us a
curveballing remix collection from Spectres, an oddly prescient live-album
reinterpretation of David Bowie's Low from Disappears, a comeback long-player
from Yeti Lane and a glow-in-the dark Kraftwerk tribute 12" EP, in a robust
and eclectic release schedule for 2016 already, Sonic Cathedral now also
delivers two sonically ambitious releases from Lorelle Meets The Obsolete and
The Early Years.
Following on from a profile-raising appearance on a Record Store Day-baiting
split-reciprocal-covers 7" with Spectres in 2015, Guadalajara's Lorelle Meets
The Obsolete deliver a sequel to 2014's Chambers, with recalibrating fourth
LP Balance. Extending upon the greater directness of Chambers, to further
filter out the more formulaic psych-rock troupes of the duo's earliest wares,
whilst adding a broader palette, this is Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto
Gonzalez's finest full-length outing to date. With guitars encircled by
synths as well as other home-studio layers and Quintanilla's vocals pushed a
little more up front, Balance has a more enveloping wall-of-sound complexity.
Hence, the intrepid "It Must The Be The Only Way" could be Broadcast breaking
through a Bardo Pond blizzard; the sublime "Ching" channels the fuzzier
middle-passages of Spiritualized's Lazer Guided Melodies with a motorik
undertow; "The Sound Of All Things" floats in collage of celestial keyboards
and found sounds before lurching into a dark pulsating Cavern Of
Anti-Matter-like groove; "La Distinci n" swims into the same viscous
lysergic-space-funk tributaries as The New Lines' All That We See And Seem;
the acid-folk of "Father's Tears" unfurls eerily through electro-acoustic
gradations, nature recordings and murky keyboards; and the closing "Eco Echo"
glows with gravitas through weighty rhythmical meshes and churning
string-bending. It's all dense and heady stuff that takes several immersive
listens to assimilate, but once you've found the hooks they don't let go
easily.
Contrastingly, whilst sharing some of the same influences, the
exceedingly-long-in-the-works second album from The Early Years is a far more
angular and precision-tooled beast. An exceedingly tardy follow-up to 2006's
All Ones And Zeros LP on Beggars Banquet - with just a handful of
EP/single-encased wares punctuating the interim years - the Roman numeral
named II finds the London-birthed quartet emerging from a debilitating and
genuine 'musical differences' torpor for a diverse questing set, that allows
the band's creative pushing and pulling to co-exist rather than fighting for
any homogenous direction.
Thus, the group cover a lot of terrain between the post-punk, art-rock and
kosmische worlds. Amongst the ten gathered and often elongated tracks lead
single "Nocturne" makes for a bold windswept opener with a rousing and
swirling early-Swervedriver-meets-mid-'80s-New Order cross-fusion; the
beatific "Fluxus" floats along like a dreamy melding of Fripp & Eno's No
Pussyfooting and the second-half of Bowie's Low; the swelling devotional
"Hush" imagines a grittier and squallier take on the ballad-led parts of
Spiritualized's Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space; the glistening
"Clone Theory" and "Near Unison" both pay unconcealed homages to Another
Green World and prime-time Cluster; and the elliptical "Hall Of Mirrors"
drifts into a roomy synth-driven soundscape with hints of Richard Wright's
understated moments with Pink Floyd. Whilst The Early Years still retain
some of the occasional lyrical and vocally deficiencies as before, the
overall artistic determination displayed on II is palpable and admirable.
Overall, this is a strong and durable suite of material that holds-up
satisfyingly well to repeated and loud airings.
*
In an interview for their record label Sonic Cathedral, Mexican duo Lorelle
Meets The Obsolete describe how in preparation for their fourth album they
gathered themselves, built up their emotional and physical strength,
retreated to their own quiet corner of town, and let their creative
imaginations run wild.
Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto Gonz lez wanted to explore new ways of
working, experimenting with new sounds, textures and rhythms. That they have
titled this offering Balance says a lot about their thoughts on the results,
and that is confirmed in an album that proves to be their most adventurous
offering yet.
The title also reflects a coming together of some very different musical
styles. While a wide soundscape is a near-constant feature of their music,
the different grooves and riffs that trade from garage rock through
psychedelia through to shoegaze and minimal rhythm tracks offer a compelling
listen.
The music's cosmopolitan flavour is reflected by its lyrics, given out in
both Spanish and English, and in its recording history, for Balance clocked
up quite a carbon footprint from Mexico to Melbourne and Chicago. The
different climates reflect on tracks that shimmer and dance in the heat, or
have a frisson of ice around their edges. The heat soaked La Distincti n does
this through a brilliant, shuffling groove with a twinkle at the treble end,
while The Sound Of All Things begins with a surprisingly soothing excerpt of
birdsong, before an urgent rhythm track comes in to really make the music
travel.
Despite Quintanilla's soothing vocal tones there is often a simmering
undercurrent of discontent to the music. The sharp synth sound cutting in
half way through the title track is like the blast of an intense garden
strimmer, which sounds a lot better than that observation implies! Similar
things happen in Ching, where a shredded guitar scythes apart the cool
keyboard sounds.
This is a striking moment in the album, with a wonderful blend of foreground
- those flickering points of white guitar light - and wide open background,
with distant chimes. The murmured, trance-like vocal caps a striking song
that is difficult to place but greatly enchanting.
This is music demands your attention, whether in hypnotic tracks like The
Sound Of All Things - where Quintanilla's soft tones are complemented by a
wall of distorted guitar and an urgent rhythm track - or, as in La
Distincti n, the thrill of following the progress of its two sharply
characterised guitar lines.
The more you listen to it, the more secrets Balance reveals, and the more you
fall under the spell of Quintanilla's vocal and the ever evolving, ever
imaginative settings for it. It is easy to see why The Cure's Robert Smith,
The Stone Roses' Mani and Henry Rollins are all fans, for Lorelle Meets The
Obsolete offer a heady mixture of psychedelia and grooves that, over time,
becomes completely compelling.
*
The metadata tells me this is 'krautrock', but it's not; that's way too
simplistic a description. For a start, the rhythms are way too languid and
dusty - 'It Must Be The Only Way' scans like some Austin, Texas psychedelia
that's been left out to dry in the desert, while 'Ching' has an oddly
disconcerting air and sense of menace. By the time 'The Sound Of All Things'
hovers into view - and we're only at track number four - where a warm,
Balearic wash gives way to pounding drums and some very heavy guitar, you're
left wondering exactly what's going on.
But the head-scratching breadth of styles and motifs on display on Lorelle
Meets The Obsolete's second album are all part of the charm. Jumping from the
woozy, sparse 'Waves Over Shadows' into the fuzzed-out seduction of 'La
Distincion' is the work of either a genius or a madman (and madwoman in the
case of this Mexican duo), and the thin line that exists between the two are
often what elevates art to greater highs. Whatever you call this, just buckle
up and enjoy the ride; it's thrilling.
*
Balance is a fitting name for a Lorelle Meets the Obsolete album, as the duo
from Mexico is all about juggling various psychedelic influences, dropping
them in a pot, and brewing up a sound that is both original and familiar.
When I listened to this album, I felt like I was watching a beloved old movie
that I barely remembered, and all of my favorite parts were coming back to
me. "Oh yeah, the My Bloody Valentine part! I love this part!" Repeat for
Stereolab, The United States of America, etc.
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete uses that nostalgia and familiarity to its
advantage. The opening title track starts as a normal-sounding rock song, but
then has a seemingly random synth part that initially sounds out of place,
then a loud guitar part that comes out of nowhere. The band does that a lot,
mixing in different styles of music to surprise any listener who is expecting
them to paint by numbers.
Balance starts out with that style of noisy rock, but evolves partway through
with some surprisingly affecting, almost ambient pieces. "Father's Tears" is
a minimalist folk-inspired tune that sounds like something from Tender
Buttons era Broadcast."The Sound of All Things" is a spacey song with a
motorik beat that builds on itself for over five minutes before fading out
with an emotional coda - it's the best example of how this band assembles
memorable songs from recycled parts.
*
- The Emancipation of Lushness -
With a convergence of differing musical styles Lorean Quintanill and Alberto
Gonzalez have engaged in a soundscape of sorts that is not only suitable for
a more cosmopolitan flavor, but for an expression that reflects those same
values, with lyrics that shimmer, delivered in both English and Spanish.
Offering lyrics in this manner means that the music is delivered and filled
with a slight disconnect, yet manages to elegantly simmer with a compelling
bit of groove laden psychedelic intoxication. Even with its minimalist
nature, this is one of those outings that makes demands on your attention,
refusing to let you drift off, or even engage in some other activity other
than shuffling along though the twilight as Balance unfolds, distilling
creative images that are filled with emotional imagination that often nearly
take on physical strength.
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Shoegaze
is a genre of alternative rock that
originated in the late 80s. The genre is very
difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music
within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its
shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and
textural distortion that create
a tranquil, opaque
feeling.
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