Lemuria
A few days ago, we received news from the grapevine that Lemuria had a surprise album titled Recreational Hate arriving before the end of the year. And today the Buffalo founded band presents 10 fresh songs to add some extra comfort to the cold of winter, as Alex Kerns, Sheena Ozzella, Max Gregor send the world an electric fireplace glow of hope. Offering an antidote for the anger & angst that has plagued our global societies & encroached upon our collective civil niceties; Lemuria’s new album strikes with the earnest intent like a care package sent from a sincere & sweet old friend.
Recreational Hate invites all to their dinner table from the onset of “Timber Together”, celebrating the shifts & progressions of time on “Sliver of Change”, as the hit-parade rocks forth on the uplifting anthem of “Christine Perfect”. Tunnel vision exercises in feelings of personal desires & identity collide in “More Tunnel”, as guitar twang will bend the strings to your heart on “Kicking In”, surveying the icy melancholy of “Lake Below”, to the leaf metaphor of vulnerability on “Trembling”, the floral awakenings & realizations of “Marigold” to the curtain call bow of “Best Extra” that commits itself to keep trying hard while searching for humanity in both art & life.
Alex Kerns from Lemuria penned the following exclusive behind-the-scenes reflections about the making of Recreational Hate:
This album was unique in the creative process because we didn’t have any deadlines. Recreational Hate took a long time to come to fruition. It started in a basement room that I soundproofed in Buffalo in the middle of one of our coldest winters. I would start around midnight and sloppily lay down songs until the sun would come up, then fall asleep for the handful of light hours you get in a Buffalo winter. The songs started off as stoned skeletons that I (Alex) would email over to Sheena and Max over the course of a year. Sheena would send over videos of her playing guitar and singing her songs as well and we would build off of each other while we lived our lives in our respective cities. Then I moved to LA for a year working a few production jobs and I moved my studio space there into a tiny space. But the songs that started off very distant and icy ended up warming up as we started getting together as a full band reworking them there.
I really think the contrast of environments gave the songs a new life. When it was time to record the album we took them to Austin, TX. We took advantage of some friends in town who were excellent players. They weren’t really familiar with playing along to what our genre may be, which was even more ideal for what we wanted. When the record was finally mixed and mastered, we became very attached to it. I had run a record label before and Max is excellent at coordinating events and projects. We weren’t very eager to hand the record over to a third party, so we decided to craft our own team. We started our own label, partnered up with a group of people we know well and we’ve had positive experiences with and wanted to give this album a more customized campaign that worked with our schedules. All three of us in the band live in different time zones, and that’s nothing new. It’s been like this for about seven years now. Our band probably won’t ever pack massive venues or ever be our primary source of income. But it keeps the three of us, siblings we’ve become, building off of what we started in 2004. No matter what distance is put between us.
Here’s the first single “Wanted To Be Yours”, that is one of the most infectious & amazing singles of 2017. Lemuria’s Alex, Sheena, Max & collaborators create a sound that is executed in near perfection that you will swear you have heard & known it your entire life.
Lemuria’s Recreational Hate is available now.
