The Anubian Lights

Genre: Electronic Hometown: Los Angeles CA
www.anubianlights.com

Friday, March 18   9:00 p.m.
Cedar Street Courtyard   (208 W 4th St)

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"The whole aesthetic behind Anubian Lights is: Everything is a valid idea, and anything is acceptable," says Tommy Grenas of Los Angeles trio The Anubian Lights. "We never sit down and make a conscious decision, 'Oh, the record has to sound like this.' We like to consider the whole spectrum of music – no matter what sound or style – as a possibility."
The title of the Anubian Lights' debut for Rhythmbank is (a new record label, founded by punk-funk pioneer Nona Hendryx and entrepreneur Bobby Banks): Phantascope. Grenas, along with his partners, Len Del Rio and Adele Bertei, cast a wide net across these twelve mesmerizing tracks. "Wild Winter," the opening cut and first single, kicks off with creaking beats, crackling vocals, and a lean bass line, yielding a track taunt with tension and drama. "Andromeda Skin" rolls out on apocalyptic disco-funk rhythms, with eyebrow-raising touches reminiscent of classic TV espionage programs – I Spy, Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – and Bertei's enticing vocals. Ever wonder what a collaboration between James Bond soundtrack maestro John Barry and Afrobeat giant Fela Kuti might have sounded like? Check out the percussive "New Wildlife." And the slinky "Good Morning Spacegirl" puts a jazzy new twist on the groovy retro-futurist sounds immortalized in sexy sci-fi flicks like Barbarella.
The roots of the Anubian Lights stretch back to London, in the 1980s. Tommy was a devoted fan of Krautrock bands like Can and Neu!, as well as electronic innovators such as Cabaret Voltaire and Kraftwerk. Len preferred the sounds of classic exotica and ska. "We bonded because he was listening to a completely different style of music from anybody else I knew in London," says Tommy. "Len educated me in the California lounge scene – Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Esquivel – and ska, and rocksteady. And I turned him on to all the psychedelic rock coming out of Europe, and the pre-industrial music movement, Factory Records and so on. What brought us together was Yello," he remembers. That influential Swiss electronic ensemble's earliest albums, Claro Que Si and Solid Pleasure, appealed to their individual sensibilities, providing them with a key point of intersection.
Tommy and Len began making music together in 1987, and formed the Anubian Lights in 1995. In late 2001, the Anubian Lights released their debut album, Nazbar, via the Crippled Disc Hot Wax! imprint (Warner Chappell). Their distinct mélange of sounds from many regions and eras won them enthusiastic support from tastemakers including influential broadcasters Nic
Harcourt, music director of L.A.’s KCRW and the Morning Becomes Eclectic show, the BBC’s late John Peel and Anne Hobbs, and DJ, recording artist, and film composer David Holmes (Oceans Eleven). The following year, after successful live shows in Australia and Europe, the duo joined forces with notorious NYC no wave icon Lydia Lunch, a collaboration that yielded the sinister yet seductive EP Champagne, Cocaine, and Nicotine Stains.
It was while working with Lunch on her latest album, Smoke in the Shadows, that Tommy and Len met Adele Bertei, a fellow downtown NY vet whom Lydia had recruited to supply co-writing talents and backing vocals. They were already fans, well aware of Adele's pivotal role as keyboardist in the original incarnation of James Chance and the Contortions. "Whilst working on Lydia's album, we started to love Adele and what she was doing." They asked her if she would be interested in working together more, and she agreed. "It quickly progressed from Adele just singing on a couple songs, to her becoming more involved in the music, and then becoming a full blown band member," recounts Tommy.

Adele came to the Anubian Lights with an impressive list of credits. In addition to her work with the Contortions (with whom she recently reunited in L.A. for All Tomorrows Parties), she founded the pivotal all-female punk group The Bloods, whose single, "Button Up," is one of the highlights of the best-selling Soul Jazz compilation New York Noise. "Build Me A Bridge," her debut solo single, produced by Thomas Dolby, was a Top 5 Billboard dance hit. She contributed vocals to key albums like Dolby's The Flat Earth and Just Visiting This Planet by DJ/producer Jellybean Benitez. Adele has also written pop songs for several artists and has worked as a backing singer with luminaries including Tears For Fears and Sophie B. Hawkins.

In the early '90s, Adele left New York for California, to work as a writer and director in film and television. Hence her immediate attraction to the music Tommy and Len presented to her – and willingness to return to the pop music area after a decade away. "Their music felt very cinematic," she explains. "The textures they were dealing with reminded me of wonderful film scoring. I love the way they slyly integrate samples, this interesting, collage approach they take to their songs. They very much wanted to take the next step in their evolution: Add a singer, and work with more structured songs, lyrics and vocals. It was a perfect match."
The trio wrote, recorded, and produced Phantascope together. "Tommy and I co-wrote a lot of the lyrics together," Adele adds. "We can get pretty bizarre in terms of wordplay, and there’s a lot of hilarity involved. I was able to show him a little more about structure, and he, in turn, imparted his wacky sensibility, and helped defuse the straightforward seriousness of my lyrical intent. The results are very tongue in cheek, and more than a little surreal." Even when themes of alienation or politics arise (as on "Way Gone Man"), the lyrical tone is thought provoking, yet never didactic.
The unreleased Phantascope recordings received heavy airplay and support from KCRW’S Nic Harcourt, which in turn helped secure the band a record deal with Rhythmbank. Next up, the Anubian Lights plan to shoot a video, directed by Adele, for "Wild Winter," and refine their stage production, for which the band expands to a quintet, adding a guitarist and a back-up singer/dancer. "I’ve been editing film projections and we have a great lighting designer, so it's a bit more of a show," concludes Adele, who is looking forward to touring – for the first time in eons. And after that? Who knows. After all, anything goes in the creative medium of… Phantascope.