The Laughing Windows

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Brett on Thu 23 Jul, 2009.

Whoa ho ho, this baby'd almost get an ecstatic for knicking their name from the Pupi Avati giallo and coming in such a groovily disturbing sleeve without me even having to hear a note. Laughing Windows' double 10" EP1 sets its stall out early with its dubbed out psych feel, krautrock-inspired grooves and a love of the three R's - repetition, repetition, repetition. Innit. I'm particularly liking the sense of space that pervades the tunes as they meander around their proggy, phased territory. At times recalling the classic horror soundtracks of Goblin, at times a more British acid folk that's done gone bombed itself out. My only reservation's with the vocals, when they're all whispery they're a bit too Damo Suzuki for comfort and when they're up high in the mix it kind of makes the whole thing sound like some of that baggy revival stuff I'm sure we'd all rather forget.. Lo-Fidelity Allstars, Regular Fries, all that biz. If this was an instrumental record I'd definitely be taking one home but you know what vocals are like, they're super subjective and can make or break a record for you. Still good shit on the whole though.

· Inhabiting the same unpredictable terrain as krautrockers Can
and Cluster, Luke Insect, Joe Hollick (Wolf People) and
Mike Blackwell have subtly drawn from a host of eclectic
voices to shape his own highly distinctive sound. Like the best
psyche folk, it is music that exudes a sense of bizarre
possibility; a world in which Ken Loach meets Damo
Suzuki, where The Beta Band collide with Dario Argento.
The results are irresistibly fascinating.
· As the ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’ unearthliness of this
single attests, there is certainly a strong vein of English
psychedelia in The Laughing Windows. Luke Insect’s
parents were friends of Syd Barrett in the Cambridge days
and later London freak out days when musicians were
searching the nation’s musical past for surreal characters and
images. The Laughing Windows create music that registers
strongly on a psychological level. They are reaching for
images of a lost England, be it in glimpses from the strange
and elliptical folk-past or documents of 60s working-class
London. This brings an intriguing and rare power to the
music. The effect is to produce imagery that seems at once
disarmingly familiar and supernaturally strange.
· Available on strictly limited double

Alpha Test * Beta Test * Signals *
Salak Pazar * Southern Lights