Heavy Air

2016 two CD release. 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, its 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.