From the LA Times web site.
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 20:00:23 -0400
From: JoeJanecek@AOL.COM
Subject: Lush article
>From the LA Times Web Site
POP MUSIC
Refiguring the Lush Life
In its seven mostly underground years, the group that put out the dense
'Spooky' has kept emotions in check. With the new album 'Lovelife,' all
vitriol breaks loose.
By Lorraine Ali
For most of its seven-year career, Lush has been as intriguingly distant
as Pluto, with a core of dedicated fans orbiting like curious probes.
One of England's enigmatic "dream pop" bands, the quartet buried its
tunes and wafting vocals under layers of guitar reverb, signed with the
esoteric 4AD record label and put out cryptically titled records such as
"Spooky" and "Scar." It didn't help, from an accessibility standpoint, that
the musicians looked so cool as to be unapproachable.
But with its third album, "Lovelife," one of the year's hardest-hitting
and best pop albums, Lush drops its mysterious shroud and emerges as a strong
and feisty personality. Singer Miki Berenyi now sings such pointed lyrics as
"I can't believe I fell for such a loser like you" (from "Ciao!," in which
estranged lovers bat insults back and forth), and critiques the singles scene
in "Ladykillers" ("When it comes to guys like you/I know the score/I've heard
it all before"). Berenyi's voice is confident, the melodies are ultra-sassy,
the ballads graceful.
The response to Lush's new sound is also more clear-cut: "Lovelife" is
the band's most successful record. The collection has been at or near the top
of college and alternative-rock radio playlists since it was released in
March, and the video for "Ladykillers" is receiving more exposure than all
the band's past
videos combined. Lush will headline a sold-out show at the Palace on Friday.
"This album's more satisfied, more confrontational and confident," says
singer-guitarist Berenyi, 29, sitting poolside on the roof of her West
Hollywood hotel. Wearing a metallic black dress, sparkling sweater and black
tights with numerous runs, she looks incongruous in this cliched L.A.
setting, her fire-
engine red hair clashing with the patio's palms and her powdered, pale skin
the antithesis of "Baywatch" healthy.
"A lot of people think this album is about one guy, and it's not," says
Berenyi, who co-writes all of Lush's material with her childhood friend Emma
Anderson, who also sings and plays guitar.
"The song 'Ladykillers' came from three specific incidents that
happened in one week, like snapshots, and 'Ciao!' was an imaginary situation.
I actually used Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's duet 'Jackson' as a
starting point for that. They bicker all through the song, and I thought,
'Two people arguing--I can do that.' "
At the time of Lush's appearance on the 1992 Lollapalooza tour, the
band offered the washes of textural noise and ghostly, sheer, often
indecipherable vocals that marked its debut album, "Spooky."
"We never had the vocals up front or had the effects on the guitars
turned down," drummer Chris Aclund, who's joined Berenyi at a patio table,
says of those early days. "But we thought if we can play Lollapalooza at 2 in
the afternoon to a load of bored Pearl Jam fans, we can do anything."
Even though Lush's second album, 1994's "Split," offered some sharper
edges, the band was beginning to feel trapped by its sound, which Berenyi
says was given the band by the producer of "Spooky," the Cocteau Twins' Robin
Guthrie.
"From then on it was quite difficult to shake," she says. "Even people
that worked with us on different projects after that still had 'Spooky' in
mind. It was like, 'Well, they're quite a melodic, gentle,
soundscape type of band.' It was very frustrating."
But despite its difficulty homing in on its own sound, Lush became a
respected part of the underground world.
"We had very little self-awareness," Berenyi says. "We were always a
bit bemused with the amount of reverence that some people would describe our
music with. We still thought we were treading water a bit. When I see bands
come out now, they're a hundred times more professional than we were. We were
like, 'We've got five songs now. I guess we can play.' "
Berenyi grew up in the London suburb of Willesden Green with her
Hungarian dad, a freelance sports journalist, and her Japanese mom, a
housewife and part-time actress. Her parents split when she was 4 and she
lived with her mother, who listened incessantly to the Kinks, Roxy Music and
Carly Simon.
Berenyi moved in with her London-based father at age 11 when her mother
moved to Los Angeles, and the youngster soon met Anderson at the girls'
school both attended. They immediately bonded.
The two were in their late teens when they started a garage band called
the Bugg. The band became Lush in 1989, when its sound began to form and
interest trickled in from the outside world. Aclund, a
college schoolmate, joined before the band signed with 4AD in 1989. After a
few EPs, former rock journalist Philip King came aboard as bassist, and the
band released "Spooky" to critical acclaim in 1992.
When "Split" came out two years later there was less fanfare, but it
marked a key transition.
"That album was way more serious than other things we'd done," Berenyi
says. "A lot of the songs were quiet, inward-looking, and about headier
subjects. But that older stuff was not doe-eyed. There was a certain amount
of sarcasm there. There's always been an element of humor in our music, but
again, the lyrics weren't as important then as the sonic experience."
The band's video for "Ladykillers" capitalizes on that sense of humor,
with its quick, snapshot images of Berenyi rolling her eyes and looking
extremely bored as she's approached by a number of sleazy
characters in a bar.
Berenyi used some of her frustration over being misinterpreted as arty
and pretentious to propel the more fiery feel of the new album. "It just
suddenly seemed easier to write about things that pissed me off," she says.
"It's weird, 'cause not all the songs I wrote were like that, but it's
the vitriolic ones that made it onto the album. I'd love to be able to write
a really good love song. A happy song like 'It's Raining Men' by the
Weather Girls. It's so happy! . . . I try and write a happy song and it just
sounds like a piece of inane [expletive]."
Berenyi pauses. "Can you tell we're not very good at selling
ourselves?" She laughs. "I just feel like an idiot getting that pious-faced
about music. Yes, it's important, but it's not the be-all and end-all."
* Lush plays Friday at the Palace, 1735 N. Vine St., 7:30 p.m. Sold
out. (213) 462-3000.
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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Last Modified: 24 May, 1996
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