Lusine - The Waiting Room

"Seattle-based producer Jeff McIlwain's work has long inhabited the fertile border zone between electronic pop and experimental electronic music — it's a place that's home to music that has both a brain and a heart, and McIlwain's been exploring its boundaries for the best part of a decade now."

"The Waiting Room is his third full-length release for Ghostly International under the moniker Lusine, and his first album since 2009's A Certain Distance. As with all McIlwain's work as Lusine, this is a record that's characterized by both diversity and coherency. Its tracks traverse a variety of sonic landscapes, from the widescreen atmospherics of appropriately-titled opening track "Panoramic" through the digital soul arrangement of Electronic's "Get the Message" and the club-friendly bounce of "First Call" to the slow-building Detroit-inflected closer "February".

"But for all The Waiting Room's eclecticism, it's also notable that it plays out as a coherent whole, with McIlwain's deft production creating the sense of a single, logical journey — an album, rather than a simple collection of tracks. It also continues the excursions into vocal-led tracks that characterized A Certain Distance — exactly half of The Waiting Room's ten tracks employ vocalists, most notably the aforementioned "Get the Message," wherein guest vocalist and wife Sarah McIlwain makes Bernard Sumner's words her own: "I don't know where to begin / Living in sin," she sings calmly, "How can you talk? / Look where you've been."

"As a whole, this is an album that's both cerebral and visceral, a record that's both rewarding of a serious headphone session and also warm and melodic enough to make listening as engaging in an emotional sense as it is in an intellectual one. Many artists flirt with these two extremities of electronic music; few tie them together as well as McIlwain does."

Ghostly International http://ghostly.com/r...he-waiting-room

Sounding great.

http://soundcloud.com/ghostly/lusine-another-tomorrow

that track is lovely, I'll be sure to check this release out.

looking forward

Lusine... An art teacher of mine put on a cd of Lusine Icl during class. Must 've been about 9 years ago. Got me into idm/electronic/whatever-you-want-to-call-it-music. Time... ^^ Thanks teach.

looking forward to this yay! His Delikatessen release "Sustain" is the first anything I had ever heard by him. He is a legend. http://www.discogs.com/label/Delikatessen+Records all of these releases are golden.

Sounds like a lusine back in form, to my ears. I loved his first releases but lost interest over the years. He has a distinct sound, but after a while the tracks just got boring, imo. This sample sounds like he might have put his balls back to where they belong.

This CD sounds lush as funk.

Loving 'another tomorrow's subtle warmth and washed out vocals to the analog synth-fun.

i've lusine listened, more in the past then in the last few years. i really like his sounds, especially on the hymen. the 'language barrier' and 'iron city' are so pretty

  On 11/12/2012 at 6:00 PM, Redruth said:

i've lusine listened, more in the past then in the last few years. i really like his sounds, especially on the hymen. the 'language barrier' and 'iron city' are so pretty

This CD seems to be in a different mood than previous releases, I'd never heard much Lusine until recently, its cool to see his previous work be so varied and then hear some of his newer stuff. Thanks for the tip on those two albums, they are lovely. He lives in my hometown too so that's another tick on the awesome meter.

  On 11/13/2012 at 7:38 PM, Audioblysk said:

Thanks for the tip on those two albums, they are lovely.

your pleasure is mine

Iron City is one of my favorite things ever. Excited to hear this, especially if it is a return to form.

Second track from the forthcoming album has just been posted on soundcloud. Sound ace

https://soundcloud.com/ghostly/lusine-without-a-plan

Fuck, this sounds like falling in love. It's nothing like Iron City, it sounds almost like a collaboration with the Books. I am not fucking complaining. Most excite since new Burial!

People writing off his (relatively) recent releases, I implore you to re-examine this stance.

These tracks don't sound too dissimilar to A Certain Distance, which was actually a rather nice album with some great tracks. Especially "Thick of It" and "Gravity".

Album is floating around, but I want to wait for the physical release!

Really like it. Gets better with 2nd listen etc. Feels good and sound. Solid album.

Different from his earlier work though. But I like that, an artist can (/must) change.

(more calm techno/pop influences, but still lots of electronic/idm/braindance/experimental elements)

Starting to love this album.

Recommended!

Really need to hear this one, a friend introduced me to Lusine recently and I dig it a lot.

Going to listen to this a few times through and see how it gets with age. So far there are a couple tracks I adore, most notably the one from this thread. Really nice clean warm textures, and I like the consistent female vocals. In a way it feels like the anti-Burial, where the music is a scrapbook of memories; this feels more like a complete crystal.

If anything the texture is what's bringing me back the first time. It's so good on the ears.

I'm not that convinced after the first listen... but anyway, I take your advice and keep trying

Yeah, I like this. I still consider Iron City to be an unmatched masterwork, and I'm glad I didn't go into this expecting that. There's something very comforting and strong about this release. I honestly don't know if I'd give it this much of a chance if I wasn't in love with his other album, but I can't seem to care. More time will tell how much I come back to it.

Review at HHV Mag

http://www.hhv-mag.com/de/review/4490/lusine-the-waiting-room

track 2 'Get the Message' is absolutely gorgeous.

had it on repeat all day.

'Get The Message' is a lovely track. It's actually a cover from the group Electronic, taken from the album of the same name (you may already be aware of that, of course, just pointing it out to others who may not).

Purchased this over the weekend and I've been listening to it quite heavily since. Brilliant album, and the closer 'Stratus' is up there with Ulrich Schnauss' 'A Ritual In Time & Death' as one of the best album closers of the year so far.

Highly recommended.

I've had this on repeat, really enjoy most of the songs on this album!