With an optimistic title, Wesley Eisold, a Philly native turned New Yorker, crafts synthy moodscapes with Cold Cave’s sophomore full-length release Cherish the Light Years. Satiating ravenous fans with Love Comes Close’s follow-up, today’s release via Matador opens optimistic with sputtering backbeats followed close by electrified chords and Eisold’s post-punk styled vocals. “The Great Pan is Dead” feels iconic, triumphant, and knowing, creating cohesion of deference between Eisold’s delivery and the opening track’s memorable emotional core. Within seconds of its start Cherish the Light Years grabs hold of its listener and keeps them close until its end. Such magnetism begins with “The Great Pan is Dead” and is intensified by the dancey thrill of “Pacing Around the Church”. Reminiscent of Bloc Party’s initial potential or New Wavers like Depeche Mode, Eisold’s deliberate lyricism harbors a relatable criticism on religious tradition, its flaws, shortcomings, and (at times) miss placed hopes. With the assurance that “it was easy when we were young and free,” Eisold offers a provocatively post-mod alternative: “the truth is no where near.” Existential and catchy, “Pacing Around the Church” is cerebral with hissing clicks and memorable hooks. Here, Cold Cave capitalizes on a depth prophesized by earlier tracks like “Love Comes Close” and the pulsating dread of “Youth and Lust”. An easily consumable anthem, “Confetti” opens with mesmerizing synth and drum machine beats that feel warm and tropical. Eisold’s diction rises lush and near seductive in an upbeat but brooding trance like tempo, bringing to mind a mellowed out mix of gender bender Boy George’s antics in the Culture Club’s “Miss Me Blind” mixed with the haunting swell of Soft Cell’s “Youth”. A nearly perfect track for summer, “Confetti”, with its “Blue Monday” fashioned breakdown and 80s friendly diligence is bound to become the successor to “Life Magazine” in popularity. “Underworld USA” is heated and gothy, opening with unrelenting beats, whispers, and lightly washed out riffs. Making the most of religious iconography, Eisold’s use of words like “missionary,” “confess,” and “blasphemous,” serve as thematic authenticity to a track dealing more with redemption through romance rather than redemption through Westernized forms of religious faith. Delectably dark wave, “Underworld USA” conjures the same evocative depth of Bauhaus’ performance of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in ‘83’s vamp thriller The Hunger. “Alchemy and You” shines with infectious riffs and swirling chords while “Burning Sage” sinks deep under the skin with percussive minimalism and morose diction. Falling somewhere between singles by New Order (“Elegia” and “Ceremony”) and the iconic gloom of Joy Division, Cold Cave’s Cherish the Light Years is a successful resurrection of dark wave at its best. - Dianca Potts
Lushlife, a.k.a. Raj Haldar, has been dropping mixtapes since 2005, when he released his debut entitled West Sounds, which was a mashup of The Beach Boy’s classic Pet Sounds and Kanye West’s College Dropout and Late Registration as well as his own verses. On his first label release Plateau Vision (Western Vinyl), Lush continues to develop his eclectic style, combining ‘60s psychedelic, experimental indie and golden era hip hop sounds to create the grandiose, maximalist soundscape beats that he rhymes over.
With his latest LP, Lush establishes himself as a unique artist who is able to take influences from various genres, sounds and eras of music to develop a completely original style that has one foot in classic hip hop and the other through the doorway of the future. This distinctive style is displayed immediately on the album’s opener “Magnolia.” The track combines a beautiful harp sample over a hard boom bap beat with lyrics that reference composer Burt Bacharach, the graffiti culture of Wild Style, Citizen Kane’s Xanadu and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” through his gritty Nas-esque vocal delivery. In “Hale-Bopp was the Bedouins,” which features Das Racists’ Heems, Haldar references his technique as “half-Delorean, half-rap historian.”
Plateau Vision boasts an impressive guest list of artists including Andrew Cedermark (Titus Andronicus), Styles P and Shad amongst others, but Lushlife always shines through as both an emcee and a producer. The first feature comes from Styles P (famous for his work with ‘90s hip hop crew LOX) on “Still Hear The Word Progress,” one of the LP’s standout tracks. Lushlife trades bars back and forth with the iconic emcee at a furious pace without losing a step over a dense synth and 8-bit beat. Towards the halfway point of the album, Lush shines brightly with fellow Philly emcee and former Atlanta native STS on “Glistening,” and he hands over the mic on “Gymnopedie 1.2” to critically acclaimed Canadian emcee Shad while crafting one of the most interesting beats on the Plateau Vision by sampling one of 20th century French composer/pianist Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedies,” which fades out under a clip from Busy Bee and Kool Moe Dee’s classic emcee battle, tying Haldar’s classical and jazz upbringing with his “fetish” for golden era hip hop culture.
Lushlife is definitely one of the most interesting artists in hip hop today. He continues to push the genre’s boundaries with his production while remaining true to its culture through his vocal delivery and preservation of its history throughout his lyrics. Plateau Vision is available for streaming HERE, and you can purchase the album via Western Vinyl. - Dan Brightcliffe
