Lightheaded

Expected to ship on or before the May 17th release date. If you order this along with other items we'll ship your order when everything is in stock. Note that the Baby Blue vinyl edition is available only from Monorail Music in Glasgow, direct from Slumberland and at the band's shows.

About the LP bundle:

Because of an odd quirk of record production timings and our release schedule, we have THREE new Slumberland albums coming out in May. Since we know that a fair number of you might want to purchase all three we're offering a special deal that includes color vinyl copies of all 3 albums. You'll save a bit on each record, but with all three being shipped together you'll save even more on postage.

This bundle includes:

SLR 280 Lightheaded "Combustible Gems" blue vinyl LP

SLR 283 Neutrals "New Town Dream" deluxe blue vinyl LP w/newspaper & postcard

SLR 285 Lunchbox "Pop and Circumstance" pink vinyl LP

Lightheaded are, simply, a great pop group. Their songs are full of melody and harmony, are bittersweet and memorable, familiar yet original. Their sound is a perfect mix of jangling guitars -- featuring Sara Abdlebarry's exquisite, tasteful, but punchy Gretsch lead played over Stephen Stec's Rickenbacker chime -- anchored to singer Cynthia Rickenbach's Hofner Violin bass, which sounds like the bass on Michel Polnareff's first LP.

Cynthia and Stephen write pop songs in the classic sense, and though they are young they're already familiar with the good stuff. Cynthia wears a Gene Clark tee shirt and is a fan of Dusty Springfield, The Aislers Set, and Joan Jett. Stephen worships at the altar of Big Star, The Clientele, and The Go-Betweens. As with bands like The Aislers Set and Belle & Sebastian, you hear an aural kaleidoscope, the history pop music and the best rock and roll, in the music of Lightheaded.

What you hold in your hand now is their debut LP "Combustible Gems" - an LP about a band finding their sound, exploring notes, chords, and melody and making uncannily great music along the way. First single "Dawn Hush Lullaby" features an electric folk-pop sensibility that starts like a waltz, but goes into Greenwich Village pop time, like a sweet Norma Tanega tune. "Moments Notice" is a killer tune, rhythmic and catchy. It starts off like Motown or The Jam, but then Sara's hypnotic, hooky guitar riff takes the song some place else, shooting off into soft pop heaven, like kid siblings of the Free Design.

"Hugging Horizons" is the Sound of Young New Jersey. It's soul music, but by experimenting and playing around, they have accidentally invented some sort of New New Pop. "Because of You" ends the album on a real high, featuring Johnny Marr style guitar and some gorgeous strings. It's poignant and sophisticated, but still eager, slightly gauche even. And as always refreshingly, wonderfully, naively sincere.

"Combustible Gems" is a jump into the sparkling blue water, excited experimentation, exploration, finding themselves, with the effervescence of youth that makes for great debut LPs. It has the youthful urgency of Comet Gain, the wide-eyed nostalgia of early Orange Juice, the suss and anti-macho swagger of those early Pastels singles. It yearns for something, it is an exciting, stumbling, falling, laughing, charming, great pop debut.

Hoffner Burns, Spring 2024