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LP
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ITR 403LP
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"For roundabout a decade now, The Lavender Flu has been pumping their inimitable, underground group-sound way past all manner of lesser modern muck, moving only and always as their varied inspirations prompt them. As players, Chris Gunn, Ben Spencer, and Scott Simmons remain open to where any given moment might take them, which has resulted in thrilling experiences both live and on record at every turn. Tracing The Sand By The Pool, their latest album for In The Red, finds The Flu firing at their most crisp and direct, a full-band collection of meander-free hits triumphantly captured to tape by the lads themselves. Moments will tug, others will stun, but there can be no doubt this new communiqué is their mightiest. The record unfolds from 'Within,' born out of a Kiwi brightness that is methodically guided through a series of near-crashes and sly, inward moves, spotlighting the key pillars of the band's songcraft and tailored to convert the uninitiated. Gunn's guitar work continues to fascinate and marvel, boasting too many moments of both melodic sweetness and violent shattering to detail here. Their cover of the hangmen's 'I'm Gonna Love You' capably inverts Suicide's menace to a hopeful, romantic sheen. Of critical note are a pair of guest contributions from The Spatulas' Miranda Soileau-Pratt, who lends vocals to multiple songs including the deceptive '80s dosed pop of 'Snail On The Map,' and The Tube Alloys' Shelby Jacobson, who takes lead on a cosmos-injected cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'That's Alright,' as well as 'Patron Eyes (Cocoon 2069),' the most vicious, smashingly punk moment the band has unleashed to date. From the jump to its final rest, the album is boundless and full of gifts."
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LP
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MEDS XV
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"Recorded on July 28th, 2023 -- right around the time Mercury was pairing up with Regulus in the evening twilight. The Flu were in the middle of celebrating National Moth Week and recording this occult sonic ritual. Psychic warfare via sound against forces hostile to the residents of Iquitos. Fully improvised, fully alien, no songs. The entire album is one jam cut in half to fit on both sides of the vinyl. Hand numbered edition of 150 copies with insert."
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LP
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MEDS 012LP
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"Mixed with a firm lock on disorientation and guided by the inspiration of James Yancey and The Upsetter, Tomorrow Cleaners sounds like it was left in the sun and melted all over the rocks and into the ocean. This is basically the 'lost' 2nd album (put on hold due to malfunctioning equipment) and it is somewhat of a return to the alien underwater vibe of Heavy Air. After an arduous process of casting spells, reverse engineering the enemy and acquiring the necessary equipment, this was completed in quarantine and the tapes were mastered direct to lacquer. Illuminate your future. Maximal hallucinatory states await."
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LP
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ITR 344LP
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"In contrast to their prior mobile-unit hole-ups and home-taped fryers, Barbarian Dust, the third album from Lavender Flu, marks the band's first raid of a proper studio. Extending the formalities further, the conceptual impetus for the sessions stems from a collective meditation on cosmic biker rock. Smokey, sure -- and that peculiar, chunky ether seeps into the resulting collection -- but it all ultimately serves to a liquid frame, a set of parameters imposed purely to burst through. Compositionally and thematically, Barbarian Dust alternates between hope and anger, each idealized, a sway thoughtfully achieved through an often-soaring, occasionally busted version of rock heaviness (without ever approaching 'Heavy Rock', thank heaven/hell). In every sense of the word, it's their most aggressive work to date. "Barbarian Dust collects songs that move in and out of wobble and explosion, each pushing forever forward, just as the composers themselves do. Galaxies past cool-but-copyist trips, Lavender Flu -- brothers Chris and Lucas Gunn, Scott Simmons and Ben Spencer -- slaughter the trivial in favor of a newer, deeper, more meaningful sound, indifferent to any path other than their own. Time to transform, yet again." --Mitch Cardwell
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LP
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MEDS 011LP
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"Radically different new Lavender Flu album, Admiration For A Dancer. Spontaneous jams captured without everyone even aware they were being recorded. Everything was improvised on the spot and there are no guitars: just synth, drums, synth percussion and some bass. It was all recorded live to 1 microphone and nearly all of it on a Sunday afternoon in January 2019. Edited by Scott Simmons. Mastered by Justin Higgins. Edition of 275 numbered copies on MEDS."
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CD
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ITR 320CD
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"The new Lavender Flu album Mow The Glass was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One can hear it in the music: the Oregon coast, the dream life of an Axolotl, the open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar. Heavy Air, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris Gunn (The Hunches) on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill. This new album is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. thirty-five minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn't deal in nostalgic regression or self conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu."
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LP
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ITR 320LP
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LP version. "The new Lavender Flu album Mow The Glass was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One can hear it in the music: the Oregon coast, the dream life of an Axolotl, the open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky. A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar. Heavy Air, the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris Gunn (The Hunches) on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill. This new album is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. thirty-five minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn't deal in nostalgic regression or self conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu."
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CD
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HOLY 1999CD
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"A home-recording project completely open to experimentation but in love with songs, The Lavender Flu is masterminded by Chris Gunn (The Hunches, Hospitals). Their massive 30-song debut double-album Heavy Air was conceived over a period of years and outside of the genre concentration camps. Like Terrence Malick's Tree of Life remade by the ghost of Phillip K. Dick, it's psychedelic and dense, projecting sounds as images inside your head, layers and layers yielding new secrets with each listen. Heavy Air winds a circuitous path through pop songs ('My Time,' 'Those That Bend'--with a 'Waterloo Sunset' vibe), blasted rockers ('Fingers Like Wounds'), beautiful instrumentals ('Feel the Ground,' 'Telepathic Axe'), fractured folk ('Between The Trees'), weirder experimental pieces ('Vacuum Creature,' 'La-Bas'), straight-up fried epics ('Transcendental Hangover') plus a few covers in the mix, including a maximal / minimal take on The Godz' mantra-like ode to sun worship and a Townes Van Zandt tune that is derailed by a massive panic attack. Lyrics and melodies appear and reappear as half-remembered dreams or reconstructed memories. Traces of Big Star, Royal Trux, Brian Eno, Meat Puppets II and American Beauty are in the DNA but The Lavender Flu is its own beast."
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