Today is the day that the Hong Kong dreampop 5 piece band Lucid Express finally dropped their self-titled debut album via Kanine Records and Middle Class Cigars.
This is awesome that a Hong Kong band is trying make it through the North American indie scene and this album is filled with throwback 90s style of dreamy shoegaze alterna-pop music.
You can feel the angst of it without being an angry album due the tension happening in Hong Kong politically and culturally.
I was hoping there would be a track sung in Cantonese but it doesn’t really matter since this one mind blowing atmospheric album to listen in 2021!
About the album:
The 10-track collection is a range of lush atmospheric moods that infuse this debut.
From the gently defiant brightness of “Wellwave”, through the darker shades of “Hollowers”, to the crashing walls of sound within “Hotel 65”, Lucid Express is a collection of carefully crafted songs that explore young relationships, the group’s love for music, and their struggle to carve their own place in the Hong Kong music scene.
Amidst the scenes of tear-gassed and beaten protesters, politically-targeted arrests, and death threats from government officials, Kim was meeting with like-minded musicians Andy, Samuel, Sky, and Wai in the small practice space they rent in the remote industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood. A place to create something that they could call their own. Something that lived outside of the world they were experiencing.
Listening to their blissful, dreamy compositions, it may come as no surprise that these songs carry the mood of their times of inception. With all members of the band working late-night shifts, this led to a rehearsal and recording schedule that found the band playing between midnight and 4am, and then crashing together on the studio floor before returning to work early in the AM.
The result is a collection of enveloping songs about young life, love, and heartache in trying times. Brothers Samuel (bass) and Wai (drums) providing a locked-in drive that gives guitarists Andy and Sky the space to create towering soundscapes of delay, reverb and phasing, all tied together by Kim’s elegant vocals and synth lines.
While writing and recording together did serve as a unifying and soothing presence for Kim and the rest of the band, their music also fell victim to their complicated circumstances. Among the pervasive uncertainty over Hong Kong’s future, a depression set in and found its way into the local music scene as shows began to be cancelled and releases stalled. For a time, it just didn’t feel relevant to be promoting music.
While there is much to still be fought for at home, the group have finally begun to feel a fresh hope in their creations. They’ve reached an understanding of their music’s place amongst the world it inhabits. A sense that it is now time to unveil Lucid Express.
Lucid Express (the album) gets:
/10.
Lucid Express – Lucid Express [Streaming]
