LOTUS PLAZA
The Floodlight Collective

BIO:

Up until this point Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt’s solo moniker, Lotus Plaza, has been an online-only affair. After releasing a handful of songs on his blog, fans started taking notice of Pundt’s talent and it became increasingly clear that his role in Deerhunter was crucial to the band’s sonic reconstruction on its breakthrough 2007 album, “Cryptograms.” “The Floodlight Collective” is Pundt’s solo debut out on experimental label Kranky.

REVIEW:

Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s solo project. “Atlas Sound”. was released in 2008 – an album featuring a weighty instrumentation of oppressive electronics and vulnerable melodies awash in oscillating waves of reverb drenched guitar and insular suburban teenage treacle. Considering that album was dedicated to Pundt, it makes sense that on his Lotus Plaza debut Pundt doesn’t stray too far from this template. But don’t mistake this for a lack of originality – more like a perfected vision of his already singular work with Deerhunter.

With that being said, this album isn’t just a record to tide Deerhunter fans over until its next disc. “The Floodlight Collective” is an undeniably transcendent record. It’s the ideal album to transform a sunny day into a hazy, surreal daydream, able to make the ordinary world around you a little less ordinary.

The aforementioned blog cuts are all featured on the disc, but they have all been reworked and tweaked a bit. And you can credit album producer Brian Foote for these changes in format on record. Having produced both Cox’s and Pundt’s albums, it seems Foote’s career as a top notch producer is taking off.

One such song he reworked for “The Floodlight Collective” is the hypnotic drone of “Whiteout.”

With Pundt’s vocals, shrouded in a haze of reverb, hardly any lyrics on the album are discernible – it’s just not that kind of record. Instead, Pundt uses his vocal detriment to his advantage, eschewing pitch perfect harmonies in favor of layered texture such as on the soaring chorus of “What Grows?” or the driving rocker “A Threaded Needle.”

But if there is a complaint, these vocals all start to meld into one another bogging down the songs into an abstract territory of which even the most patient of listeners will grow weary.

VERDICT:

If you think this album is just “the album from that dude in Deerhunter” you’d be missing out on the first record of what is shaping up to be a promising solo career. A career that’s just as impressive and affecting as his other band. Looks like Kranky’s faith in Pundt wasn’t misplaced. This can only mean good things for both bands in the future.