Lazyflux
(self-released)
Take some vintage interstellar Floyd, sprinkle lightly with motorik-drone Can, dose liberally with globs of shoegazey Ride and Stone Roses, then fold everything into a luminous Spiritualized cocoon, and voila - meet London's Lazyflux, a self-described "trip rock" quintet who, truth in titling, do in fact trip and definitely rock. With roughly four and a half decades' worth of psychedelia to draw upon in 2011, it would be perilously easy to come across as less than the sum of one's lysergic influences, but to the band's credit, playing the spot-the-musical-mentor game in this case is nothing but fun.
Ergo, the 11 songs on Lazyflux's self-titled debut traipse the light fantastic and back again. Opening track "Ether Oasis" sets the stage via a piano-powered melody, shuddery swipes of strafing. reverb guitar and woozy/overlapping vocals. Soon enough, the hypnotic "Natural Selection" undulates into view, singer Nick Majer deploying a vocal incantation that's part-Damo Suzuki, part-Thom Yorke as he ruminates upon whether we're the victims of nature, or nurture, or something more insidious. (Yes, true to the kosmiche imperative, these young musicians wed their sonic flights to philosophical ones; no songs about football, pubs and mates for Lazyflux.) And the thrumming, edgy "Citizen Kinetics" could be some long-lost Madchester anthem from the dawn of the ‘90s; in the right DJ hands, it'l be ripe for a dance-floor remix.
The bottom line is that while there are certainly a fair number of derivative elements at play here, the potential evidenced by the group is enormous. Lazyflux boast a big, cranium-teasing sound and they also bring a huge amount of ambition to the table that will carry them far. (Note: all 11 songs can be previewed at the Lazyflux.com website, linked above.)
DOWNLOAD: "Ether Oasis," "Citizen Kinetics," "Supercomputers" FRED MILLS
