Lüüp – Cream Sky
Lüüp make some charming folky weirdness in a way that the “new weird folk” or whatever the fuck it was called could never possibly come up with. Lead by Stelios Romaliadis, the new Meadow Rituals album on Experimedia is filled with almost 20 people bending genres in a way I’ve yet to hear. There’s no map for the place they’ve gone, somewhere off in the New Age classical folk drone land.
Not all of the tracks appeal to me, there’s lots of vocals & flutes giving off a fantasy vibe that just doesn’t rub me the right way, but “Cream Sky” is a perfect example of where they dance line, staggering ever so closely to the dreaded cheese zone but ending up with something totally fucking great. There’s plenty of classy instruments, making a warm and airy atmosphere, then tossing in some reversed sounds to spice things up. The deep resonant vocals eventually come in, flowing like silk through the forest, a wondrous & light hearted dream, and finishing with looped hand claps and mouth clicks. Super cool stuff, especially when heard in the context of the whole record.