Stream all four videos from the Oakland band's Fuzz Club Session now
Up until disbanding last year – announced via a social media post saying they “were off to get some smokes” – Oakland cosmonauts Lumerians were one of the most prolific and genre-bending bands to reside on the outer edges of contemporary psychedelia. Since their formation 2006 they went on to tour around the world and share the stage with everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Killing Joke and Black Moth Super Rainbow. Constantly evolving, their sound has been known to journey from synthesised ambient excursions to far-out space-rock and kosmische post-punk, often dabbling with touches of dub, free jazz and the works.
What might very well be the final Lumerians LP comes in the shape of the Fuzz Club Session recorded when the band stopped off in London as part of a European tour in 2019. Recorded live at Love Buzz Productions and pressed to 180gm vinyl, Lumerians’ Fuzz Club Session LP is out now and comprised of four tracks, new and old. You can pick up the vinyl here and watch all the videos – including the final one from the series, 'Light The Beacon', out today – below.
'Longwave' and 'Corkscrew Trepanation' are lifted from the band's 2011 Partisan Records-released 'Transmalinna' LP and their 2008 self-titled debut EP, respectively. On this record, though, we hear the songs take on a whole new life: "Both of these songs had mutated into different animals over the years and were frequently played together as a finale during our live shows. We wanted to document their transformation since we really liked what they had become", the band reflect. As well as those reimagined Lumerians cuts, the Fuzz Club Session also features two previously unreleased jams.
They describe 'Light The Beacon' as "a snapshot of a piece of music we had been using to open our shows for tours in 2018 and 2019. It started as a simple oscillator drone that would lead into the first song but eventually became a song in and of itself. The song never really had a name, but since we used it as a way to signal the show was beginning and draw people towards the stage, 'Light the Beacon' seemed appropriate for this version."
'Transmission Overture', on the other hand, was a spontaneous composition that they'd never played before and haven't since: "This is basically the process by which we wrote all of our songs. We'd record our improvisations, listen back and then select the parts that stood out most and learn how to play it again. Some seemed so fully formed out of the gate that we'd call them "transmissions" as documented on our 'Transmissions from Telos' EP series."
