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Happy Release Day! The Luyas new LP, Animator, is out today on Dead Oceans and if you haven't had a chance to listen to the album yet, now is the time.
The record is hypnotic, textured and melodic, recorded in the wake of a close friend's death with themes and a composition that reflects the subsequent emotions and complexity of such an event.
Animator opens with the nine minute "Montuno," a dramatic start to an album that exquisitely layers guitars, french horn, keyboards and percussion against the expressive backdrop of Jessie Stein's vocals. A band regarded for its distinctive sound, The Luyas have produced a record that perfectly executes this sound, highlighting their evolution and growth as a group.
They are about to hit New York this week to play CMJ, including the WNYC showcase on Friday night with MNDR, Dave Hill and the Debo Band, a show which can be heard via their website. WNYC have been streaming the record this past week as well, and the full album can now be heard on Spinner.
The Luyas went into the studio on a February morning with the plan of getting some drum sounds to start writing songs for a new album. As the mics were going up, the band received a phone call. There had been a sudden death. The incomprehensible event left the band in an existential daze. The mics put themselves up that morning.
The resulting LP, Animator, opens with “Montuno,” a 9-minute account of a hallucination about the repetition of days, the split seconds that define us, and the strangeness of the certainty of death.
There’s something almost supernatural to the feel of the record. “Animator is supposed to be some weird resuscitation. The animator’s job is to create the semblance of movement in things that cannot move themselves. The musician’s is to make us feel like something is happening with a sound,” explains singer and multi-instrumentalist Jessie Stein.
Recorded and produced at the Treatment Room by band member and experimental brass player Pietro Amato and mixed by Jace Lasek of the Besnard Lakes at his Breakglass Studios in the band’s hometown of Montreal, Animator is a cathartic sophisticated collection of songs. As melodically compelling as it is artistically rich, Animator is intuitive, seductive, moody and textural. It slowly unfolds its beauty and trusts the listener to stay with it.
Just as dance pioneer Loïe Fuller, whose image graces the album cover, beguiled the world with the Dance Serpentine, the songs on Animator have a hypnotic effect. Sarah Neufeld and Amato’s arrangements of string and horn float throughout, fragile and fleeting. Stein’s gentle vocals have an eerie insular feel. Mathieu Charbonneau and Mark Wheaton’s rhythm section put you in a trance. Fleets of strange noises dot the horizon. Like Portishead or the Silver Apples, the Luyas exist in the world to communicate something original yet fundamentally relatable without resorting to nostalgia.
The band’s riveting live show has been charming fans since the release of 2011’s Too Beautiful To Work, and they’ve toured the world with the likes of the Antlers, the Dodos and Blonde Redhead. The Luyas are ascending a trajectory of artistic vision and creativity, and asking if we, too, are curious.
Animator | Tracklisting
The record is hypnotic, textured and melodic, recorded in the wake of a close friend's death with themes and a composition that reflects the subsequent emotions and complexity of such an event.
Animator opens with the nine minute "Montuno," a dramatic start to an album that exquisitely layers guitars, french horn, keyboards and percussion against the expressive backdrop of Jessie Stein's vocals. A band regarded for its distinctive sound, The Luyas have produced a record that perfectly executes this sound, highlighting their evolution and growth as a group.
They are about to hit New York this week to play CMJ, including the WNYC showcase on Friday night with MNDR, Dave Hill and the Debo Band, a show which can be heard via their website. WNYC have been streaming the record this past week as well, and the full album can now be heard on Spinner.
The Luyas went into the studio on a February morning with the plan of getting some drum sounds to start writing songs for a new album. As the mics were going up, the band received a phone call. There had been a sudden death. The incomprehensible event left the band in an existential daze. The mics put themselves up that morning.
The resulting LP, Animator, opens with “Montuno,” a 9-minute account of a hallucination about the repetition of days, the split seconds that define us, and the strangeness of the certainty of death.
There’s something almost supernatural to the feel of the record. “Animator is supposed to be some weird resuscitation. The animator’s job is to create the semblance of movement in things that cannot move themselves. The musician’s is to make us feel like something is happening with a sound,” explains singer and multi-instrumentalist Jessie Stein.
Recorded and produced at the Treatment Room by band member and experimental brass player Pietro Amato and mixed by Jace Lasek of the Besnard Lakes at his Breakglass Studios in the band’s hometown of Montreal, Animator is a cathartic sophisticated collection of songs. As melodically compelling as it is artistically rich, Animator is intuitive, seductive, moody and textural. It slowly unfolds its beauty and trusts the listener to stay with it.
Just as dance pioneer Loïe Fuller, whose image graces the album cover, beguiled the world with the Dance Serpentine, the songs on Animator have a hypnotic effect. Sarah Neufeld and Amato’s arrangements of string and horn float throughout, fragile and fleeting. Stein’s gentle vocals have an eerie insular feel. Mathieu Charbonneau and Mark Wheaton’s rhythm section put you in a trance. Fleets of strange noises dot the horizon. Like Portishead or the Silver Apples, the Luyas exist in the world to communicate something original yet fundamentally relatable without resorting to nostalgia.
The band’s riveting live show has been charming fans since the release of 2011’s Too Beautiful To Work, and they’ve toured the world with the likes of the Antlers, the Dodos and Blonde Redhead. The Luyas are ascending a trajectory of artistic vision and creativity, and asking if we, too, are curious.
Animator | Tracklisting
- Montuno
- Fifty Fifty
- The Quiet Way
- Face
- Your Name's Mostly Water
- Earth Turner
- Talking Mountains
- Traces
- Crimes Machine
- Channeling
- 10/18 - Solas (DJ Set At Medium Rotation College Radio Party) - 7 PM
- 10/18 - Pianos (Windish Showcase) - 11 PM
- 10/19 - The Greene Space (WNYC Soundcheck Showcase) - 8:40 PM
- 10/19 - Cake Shop (The Great Escape/NME Showcase) - 10 PM
- 10/20 - Union Pool (Rdio Session) - 4 PM
- 11/01 - Le Cercle - Quebec City, QC
- 11/02 - BCA Center - Burlington, VT
- 11/03 - Glasslands - Brooklyn, NY
- 11/04 - Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA
- 11/05 - DC9 - Washington, DC
- 11/06 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
- 11/07 - Bathurst Culture Arts - Toronto, ON
- 11/08 - Casbah - Hamilton, ON
- 11/09 - Maverick - Ottawa, ON
- 11/13 - Cabaret - Montreal, QC
- 11/25 - Botanique - Brussels, BE
- 11/27 - Babel - Malmo, SE *
- 11/28 - Vega - Copenhagen, DK *
- 11/29 - Lido - Berlin, DE *
- 12/02 - Le Guess Who Festival - Utrecht, NL
- 12/04 - Point Ephemere - Paris, FR
- 12/05 - Saint Ex - Bordeaux, FR
- 12/07 - Les Trinitaires - Metz, FR
- 12/09 - Birthdays - London, UK
