Description:	CD on Kranky (Lockett Pundt from Deerhunter)
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental Indie
	Label:	Kranky
	Price:	£12.49
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

4
...according to our Business Lady on 26 March 2009.

The Floodlight Collective is the first solo outing for Deerhunter man Lockett Pundt under the guise of Lotus Plaza. I'm not a huge fan of Deerhunter but on first listen I'm impressed by The Floodlight Collective. With this record Pundt seems to be paying tribute to his childhood/teenage inspirations with a carefully balanced production helping him achieve this goal. Opening track 'Redoak Way' is completely saturated in studio reverberation giving it an irresistibly float charm and as with most of the tracks the airiness is tied together with pure Joy Division-esque basslines. 'Quicksand' is a spaced combination of Beach Boys pop and Shangri-Las’s doo-wop and the snare sounds so perfect that you'd assume that it's been sampled from a Phil Spector record. The majority of tracks steer a fairly precise course integrating the pop sensibilities of the mid-to-late sixties psych pop and doo-wop with the ultra hip sounds of the early-to-mid 80's UK post-punk scene. So we've dashes of Martin Hannett production on 'Different Mirrors', splashes of The Jesus and Mary Chain can be heard in the guitars or maybe that's more of a Shadows or a Twin Peaks thing ....Anyway, you get the idea. The second part of the album begins to drift into the pure ambient zone with title track 'The Floodlight Collective' abusing uni-phonic synth tones to make huge Close Encounters of the Third Kind-esque sounds but final track 'The Threaded Needle' brings you back to Earth with a well defined, well executed 60's pop gem. OK, so you get the idea..... This is a blissed out psychedelic pop record with hints of spaced out improvised ambience whilst inevitably sounding a little similar to big daddy Deerhunter. It also nods it's head to the diversity of Animal Collective, coming off sounding a little like Panda Bear whilst retaining all the charm of the Deerhunter material. He also plays all the instruments on every track.....Impressive stuff.

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What their label says...

 Lockett Pundt is the guitarist and songwriter in Deerhunter.

*  Lockett Pundt’s first full length as Lotus Plaza, is an expansive Panda Bearesque meditation on the modern history of the pop song with an obvious appreciation for the atmospheric vocal harmonies of the 50’s, the Brill Building writers of the 60’s, and the sounds of the early 80’s postpunk uk scene.

*  Features Bradford Cox (aka Atlas Sound) on ‘Different Mirrors’.

*  ‘Red Oak Way’ starts the album off with a drumbeat and a ringing guitar hook and we are off and away on a space age pop trip. ‘Quicksand’ hits next with some bouncing big beats that would not sound out of place on a classic Shangri-Las’s song, and spiced with a dash of west coast surf city. ‘These Years’ is the most understated track on the album, a slow haze of introspective rumination. ‘Different Mirrors’ tips the hat to Martin Hannett with the opening dry reverbed thwack of a one-two beat before soaring into the stratosphere, while Whiteout is an ethereal hot summer day of dripping guitars and shakers.

*  Side 2 begins with ‘What Grows’, an unabashed rocker with snarling, spiraling guitars and a chugging undertow that clocks in at a perfect 3 minutes.‘Sunday Night’ slows it down and gives one time to recover before the gorgeous krautpsych swirl of ‘Antoine’, with beats seemingly nicked from a Harmonia album, leaves behind all earthly bounds. The title track is a densely layered spacewalk that leads into the final cut, ‘Threaded Needle’, wherein Lockett smartly sums up the proceedings by combining all of the above into a perfect closer.

*  The production is multi-multi-layered with a seemingly endless amount of subtle detail in each track, while the vocals are generally low in the mix and add yet another layer to the sound.

*  There are certainly references to Lockett’s day job here, and it can be no other way as he is an integral part of that "other" group. But he clearly stakes a claim to his own sound here.

*  For Fans Of: Panda Bear, Animal Collective, Deerhunter.

*  Tracklisting: 01. Red Oak Way 02. Quicksand 03. These Years 04. Different Mirrors 05. Whiteout 06. What Grows? 07. Sunday Night 08. Antoine 09. The Floodlight Collective 10. A Threaded Needle