Lol Tolhurst, Budgie And Jacknife Lee Detail New Project, Announce 'Los Angeles' LP With Title Track
Monday, 24 July 2023
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Louis Rodiger
Former The Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst, ex-Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Budgie and legendary producer Garret 'Jacknife' Lee have teamed up for a new project.
Bringing together three hugely respected figures in music, their debut album 'Los Angeles' is scheduled to arrive on November 3. Four years in the making, it contains an impressive cast of guests, including Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie, U2 guitarist The Edge, harpist Mary Lattimore, Arrow de Wilde of Starcrawler, IDLES' James Bowen and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, who sings on the title track and first single.
Murphy's distinctive vocal style weaves in and out of dark, tribal electronic beats from the central production trio, while its accompanying video was helmed by John Liwag and features footage of skateboarding icon Mason Silva, cheerleaders led by Sydney Love, and shots of scenes from the titular city.
Born out of curiosity, the LP began life when Budgie was passing through Los Angeles as part of singer-songwriter John Grant's touring band, and he and Tolhurst met for lunch. Budgie said:
"As we were finishing, Lol turns to me and says, 'I think we should do something together.' With these things, I usually go away and forget, but for once in my life I said to myself, 'Yeah good idea!'"
Over time, the pair pieced the project together with Lee, recording in Topanga for two weeks, with Lee handling the roles of musician, mentor and producer. Commenting on the sessions, Budgie added: "Lol is very levelling. He calls himself a pragmatist, whereas I’m very impetuous, and it was like Garret was bridging the two, in his consultation room."
As of March 2020, the trio were pretty certain that they were done recording an instrumental album, "which was the original intention," revealed Budgie. As the world went into lockdown due to COVID-19, Tolhurst had the idea of adding vocals to some of the tracks, contacting James Murphy.
Tolhurst added: "Adding some vocalists that we like was obviously going to make it more attractive to people, so over the space of about 18 months to two years, we got a whole bunch of them in, and as far as lyrics went, we just said, 'You make something up!'"
Four tracks on the record remain as instrumentals, while Train With No Station and Noche Oscura include the talents of The Edge, Public Image Ltd's Jah Wobble and Holger Czukay from Can. Lee explained:
"He [The Edge] said yes straight away. I was expecting him to send us something that was Edge-like and heavily FX'd, but he just sent us acoustic guitar through, so I did the noise later. He was great with it, and really helpful."
Head below to view the LP's cover art and full tracklist.
'Los Angeles' tracklist:
1. This Is What It Is (To Be Free) [with Bobby Gillespie]
2. Los Angeles [with James Murphy]
3. Uh Oh [with Arrow de Wilde and Mark Bowen (IDLES)]
4. Ghosted At Home [with Bobby Gillespie]
5. Train With No Station [with The Edge]
6. Bodies [with Lonnie Holley and Mary Lattimore]
7. Everything And Nothing
8. Travel Channel [with Pam Amsterdam]
9. Country of the Blind [with Bobby Gillespie]
10. The Past (Being Eaten)
11. We Got To Move [with Isaac Brock]
12. Noche Ocsura [with The Edge]
13. Skins [with James Murphy]
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