Description:	CD on L-NE
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Shoegaze / Dream Pop
	Label:	Line
	Price:	£9.29
	Availability:	In stock. Dispatched in 1 working day.

5
...according to our Phil on 14 March 2010.

  I've not heard of these folks before. They formed in 1991 and released this album Chorus which was only released in Peru. Apparently Richard Chartier was well into it and he was pretty keen to get his hands on a copy and eventually after a number of conversations with Lovesliescrushing he persuaded them to go back to the original album and re do it. So it's not a remix album... it's a redux. Am I right in thinking the word redux has only been used in the last few years? I'm sure I never heard the word before the Pavement Slanted & Enchanted Redux album.... There's people out there making up words for you to inadvertently use tomorrow without realising.... Anyway the music on here is well lush.... The original album was only made using vocals... the redux version also just uses vocals. You'll listen to it and wonder how they did it as it's possibly one of the most remarkable things I've heard being that it just consists of manipulated voices and processing. It really does sit in somewhere between Seefeel and Fennesz... that's totally spot on... beautiful drifting melodies with some delicate fuzz and occasional heavenly female vocals make it all seem almost spiritual and ethereal. It's just incredible it's all been made with the human voice! Not just that but they've managed to create something as good as this with minimal resources! It's like a lost album which Infraction should have released! Also includes a download code to get the original album a 3 bonus tracks. A steal! 

Love this record? Hate it? Tell us.

Sound clips for CRWTH (Chorus Redux) by Lovesliescrushing : on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Line, LINE_043, £9.29.

What their label says...

"Through their use of low tech means and focusing on the blending of guitar noise and electronic voice processing, Lovesliescrushing can be seen as the early 'missing link' between the likes of Slowdive and Fennesz. Their output has been consistently and beautifully crafted... works that contain an element of sonic mystery and still sound timeless. Lovesliescrushing is an important, if perhaps overlooked, point in the timeline of contemporary electronic music."
- Richard Chartier

Lovesliescrushing, a seminal group formed in 1991 by Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin-Duimstra, defies simple categorization by fusing elements of shoegaze, post-rock, ambient, classical, noise, dream pop, and experimental music. Achieving a diverse tonal palette utilizing only guitar and voice, 4 track cassette recorders and classic stomp boxes, they push the boundries of noise and melody by employing a simple formula which blends swathes of deconstructed guitarwash and glossolalic vocals into densely layered soundscapes.

Their compositions range from full on distorted noise blasts, reverb-soaked atmospherics, droning veils of sound, and ambient instrumental passages, that defy traditional song structures. With their penchant for warping the guitar and voice into new timbres, one could make the case that lovesliecrushing predates the current wake of 'new-gazey, lo-fi, and glitchy set' by more than a decade.

Ostensibly a 'shoegaze' band, lovesliescrushing quickly set themselves apart in the early 1990s by eschewing drums, bass, and keyboards to concentrate solely on the barest remnants of song. By placing emphasis on minimalist textures through the use of effects pedals, they decidedly departed from standard rock forms and the standard instrumentation of shoegaze music.

ABOUT CRWTH / CHORUS:
The original release of CHORUS itself was inspired by a challenge... to make a Lovesliescrushing album abandoning Scott Cortez' trademark guitar work and use only the voice. CHORUS was created by taking vocal tracks, deconstructing them via minimal processing, and turning them into new compositions.

Cortez spliced the voice at the phoneme level using a tedious cut/paste method, creating a phonetic dust. These particles were treated to create a diverse tonal palette of looped rhythms, low bass registers, warm drones, clicks, siren whoops, birdlike whistles and then arranged to form new delicate figures. The voice becomes indecipherable glossolalia, divorced from meaning and morph into abstract lush tones that envelop the song like a droning, luminous cloud.

The "voice as an instrument" was never truer than on CHORUS, because it is the sonic material for the music itself, exploding the songs into ghostly remnants of their origin, the human voice.

The original very limited edition was released only in Peru and highly sought after. In the process of trying to obtain a copy of this recording Richard Chartier contacted Cortez directly. After long discussions of the work of Lovesliescrushing, Cortez was asked by Richard Chartier to do something special for a LINE release and came up with an idea to revisit the tracks that comprise CHORUS. the concept behind CRWTH was to abstract even further upon an abstraction. CRWTH is a completely re-edited take on the material, not merely a remix album, but an alternate version of CHORUS, a redux.

The CRWTH cd contains a special coupon for a free download of CHORUS + 3 (LINE_043b), the full original 14-track CHORUS release plus 3 additional new reworks.


Melissa Arpin-Duimstra: voice
Scott Cortez: voice. fx processing

all music composed, arranged and performed by lovesliescrushing.
voices and voice loops recorded between 1994 and 2001, arranged by Cortez in 2004.
tracks redrawn by Cortez, Summer 2009. remastered by Taylor Deupree, Fall 2009