The Future Past of Everything
"Gothfather" Lol Tolhurst broadens his perspective on third album from the LA-based band, adding former Cure bandmate Michael Dempsey to his Levinhurst project.
LEVINHURST has always been about taking the best of the past to create a better future. This progression is evident in the covers of their three albums: the artwork on debut record Perfect Life depicted stark industrial buildings; sophomore release House By The Sea alludes to brooding melancholia; and now the luminous imagery on new work Blue Star suggests a forest clearing, coming out of the woods into the light of awakening.
Blue Star is a trip into the esoterica of ancient electronic music from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, hauntingly blended to reference Lol Tolhurst's long musical legacy. His renowned drumwork and rhythms on the new songs are varied, mature and true to his past, the lyrics are sensitive vignettes of modern life.
Blue Star derives its name in part from the first astronauts' explanation of what the earth looked like from space. "This is an album of reflection about where we are right now both globally and personally." reflects Lol. The lyrics are simultaneously both personal and universal.
Lol is both anchor and inspiration for Levinhurst, as a group, to showcase the strengths and passions of its members. Vocalist Cindy Levinson enchants with a powerful, newfound verve, contributing as writer of her vocal harmonies. She finds meditation for the recording process in the ocean waves of Malibu and shares that love of natural wonder with her band mates. Virtuoso guitarist Eric Bradley colors the many moods of the tracks, bringing a broad range of technique and experimentation from his work with Alice in Chains, Jerry Cantrell and his own Young Royals.
New to the line up is former Cure band mate, bassist Michael Dempsey, who embellishes Blue Star with rich orchestration, adding layers to Levinhurst's signature soundscaping. There was a very English homecoming for Lol when he and Cindy joined Michael in East Sussex over Christmas 2008 to work on the record. The bleak, frozen countryside again offered space for reflection, as Lol contemplated not only the return to his homeland for the first time since his departure from the UK, but also the milestones of a simultaneous fiftieth birthday and thirty-year anniversary of The Cure.
"I think there is an obvious synchronicity with Michael and I working together again 30 years after we started The Cure," says Tolhurst. "The circle is complete, and in the middle part of life it feels like we will fulfill the yearning promise of our youthful selves once again."
As schoolmates in deepest Sussex, Lol Tolhurst, Michael Dempsey and Robert Smith banded together in a mutual love for Bowie, The Clash and philosophical literature, forming one of pop music's most enduring bands. Tolhurst remained in The Cure through the 80's as a chief collaborator with Smith, finishing with the multi-platinum masterwork and since unsurpassed Disintegration. Dempsey had left the band after the first record, continuing in other musical projects, including a stint in Roxy Music and recently bringing Pink Floyd's celebrated Atom Heart Mother to the London stage for the first time since the 1970's. Tolhurst & Dempsey worked together in the early 90s as Presence, releasing the album Inside on Island Records. Tolhurst remembers "It was a great time, but too much too soon after The Cure for me, I needed more space to figure out what I really wanted to do."
Lol moved to the United States in the mid-90s, choosing to settle in a very disparate Southern California. His interests were evolving; he was journeying through the pensiveness for which his previous band is celebrated and allowing Eastern and other philosophies to replace the dense and darker tones of European existentialism. He found lucidity and inspiration in the openness of the desert, and one particular epiphany in the Mojave became the source for much of his new creative impulse.
He discovered Cindy, a striking and sunny LA native, when she was singing unselfconciously in the garden one fateful afternoon. She became the perfect foil to his British reserve, and eventually asked her to be the voice of the group, and also his life.
Lol states, "Cindy has a raw musicality which has come to fruition in Blue Star. It is now a shining diamond of her most natural and beautiful expression, both sensuous and singularly unapologetic. Levinhurst is the synthesis of all of our pasts, crystallizing here and now".
Levinhurst releases Blue Star worldwide on February 2 2010
