Monday, August 27, 2007

Lumber - s/t 7''


This has been a while coming... another gem of obscure 90s hardcore, this time thanks to dan and his excellent site ROAWR!. Just four songs, it's kind of trivial as a record, yet also quite excellent and beautiful in its own way. I know nothing about Lumber except what is already on Roawr! - that "they existed sometime in the mid90s, released a 4-track 7" and some of the members went on to form the mighty Julia". That, in a way, is all you really need to know, at least if you already like this kind of music.


Lumber is very recognizably an antecedent of Julia, containing both the roughness and prettiness of that band's songs, and those familiar tinkling, rarefied guitar lines, energetic drum fills, melodic punk catchiness - and even experimental noise that featured in Julia's style. Of course, it's all slightly less developed, but it's really almost just as good. In fact, it's both the familiarities and the differences that make this record interesting to listen to.

The first track, 'Stripped' starts of with a bit of good 'ol echoey emopeggio (reminds me a bit of Indian Summer's 'Orchard', which really defines the style for me) before launching in to the true crashy, driving Julia-esque sound. At times the vocals remind me somewhat of Sunny Day Real Estate, which is sailing a bit close to the wind for my tastes (although if Jeremy Enigk was actually in this band, please tell me... I really don't have a clue!), but on the whole this is a really solid, enjoyable record. If you like music that's fraught, emotive, dynamic, poignant and hardcore, this must surely be for you...



Lumber - s/t

(Here is the original ROAWR! post, and if you haven't heard of Julia, don't worry, there's still hope! - listen/buy : kissmysoundsystem / Interpunk. And finally, if anyone has any information on Lumber, myself and dan would very much like to hear it. As you can see, I don't even have any sleeve artwork... if you have, say, a scan or a photograph, I would be very grateful... my email is on the sidebar. Cheers!)


6 comments:

sweet baby jaysus said...

this is awesome. i just got in contact with a long lost friend who is now living in san francisco, he told me he thought it was funny (in an ironic way) i had a song by julia on my myspace profile, we used to listen to them religiously together and upon moving to sf he met this drummer he started to play in a folk music duo with who just so happened to have been in julia. he said he was trying to convince the singer to start a new band with them. just blows my mind at how small of a world it is...

gabbagabbahey said...

...I dunno, the world seems fairly large from where I'm sittin', in my small little island! I'm always kind of amazed at how big America is and yet how small you make it by criss-crossing it all the time.

Guess that's why you need mixtapes for your long car journeys, eh?

Anonymous said...

this was released in 92 on vinyl communications/brother van squash. they also have an lp on rivers end (julias label)

gabbagabbahey said...

hey, thanks for the information, on this as well as the other posts. I must track down some End of the Line, you keep mentioning them. Also a Lumber LP sounds pretty good... I assume that kind of bridges the gap between this record and the records some of these guys released as Julia?

Anonymous said...

I think they reformed for the recording of the 12", or something like that... Because ot was released in 1995. Actually, I'm not sure if the 7" was released in 1992. Whatever, I'll find out and tell you.

Also, the 12" is defenately not as good as the 7". They have an amazing Cure cover, but the other songs are not as good.

Ps. I have all of these on slsk, _mihos.

noelle mason said...

I was in the band lumber. We existed simultaneous with Julia from the years 1993 - 1996, the members of the band were as follows:

Hansi, matt, jeremy, jason, noelle

happy people are still interested.

thanks,
noelle