This Lonesome Paradise lure you into a shadowy, sinister netherworld with their intoxicating and seductive new album Luna Nocturna — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The perfect accompaniment for a peyote-fuelled midnight drive through the desert en route to last call at the dive bar in True Detective, this California cabal’s sordid, woozy sound is a potent, bitter cocktail concocted from slowly dripping neo-noir twang, smouldering roots intensity and pitch-black confessions straight from the darkest corners of society’s ragged fringe.
“These songs came to me like a fever dream,” says singer-guitarist E. Ray Béchard. “Chord progressions became melody, and melody became song. My job, per usual, is to harbor the inspiration as it flows. I am a conscious observer of the world presented to me, and my songwriting reflects that time and place, much like a calendar of my life at that moment. It is difficult for me to explain my offered reality and often more difficult to explain the music it inspires.”
Suffice to say the songs are simultaneougly heavy and heavenly, wounded and weird, raw and refined, delicate and disturbing, sparse and lush, orchestral and obscure, detailed and dreamlike. “Somehow I hear a late 70’s quality to the record, though I don’t know exactly why,” Béchard explains. This may be due to the limited amount of, as well as the specific, effects used. And although the album still falls into the western noir/lounge/cinema realm, it has definitely taken a step in direction away from the expected.
Hailing from the high desert of Joshua Tree, This Lonesome Paradise deliver a sonic palate of reverb-soaked retribution, lounge-lizard lust and the enigmatic echoes of western noir. Album instrumentation is filled out by Jordin Bordeaux (keys/vocals), Ivan Garcia (drums), Chris Wilson (bass) and Herb Benham IV (slide guitar). Their dark, moody music cinema evokes the bloodlust of a Cormac McCarthy novel and the poetic surrealism of a David Lynch film.
This Lonesome Paradise are currently a well-kept secret capturing the minds and imagination of all that come into its contact. Luna Nocturna is dripping with bits of soul, goth, trip hop and bound together with their distinctive neo-western twang; it is by far their most wounded, raw and creative work to date. They have shared the stage with a wide array of musical talent such as Timber Timbre, The Warlocks, Wand and Spindrift, to name just a few.
Luna Nocturna was produced by Béchard, and recorded/mixed at Dharma Sound Studio (Landers, CA). It was mastered by Michael Rozon (Chelsea Wolfe, Melvins, Ministry) and features album art by Saint No. “The studio process was much more intentional than in past records,” says Béchard. “More time in preproduction with tones and capture, as I had a very specific sound in mind for each of the instruments and the part they would play in the overall soundscape. I wanted it to sound close and personal, as though you are witnessing it in a small club of an unidentifiable time period. I think it definitely does that.”
Hear for yourself. Listen to Luna Nocturna below and visit This Lonesome Paradise on their website and Instagram.
