FYM ON THE LIST: AUTOLUX AT THE GLASS HOUSE - POMONA, CALIFORNIA USA

Space-age shoegaze superheroes Autolux took the stage at Pomona's The Glass House in a homecoming (if you count Pomona being in Los Angeles because it's in L.A. county) performance that highlighted many of the band's best tracks from new album Transit Transit and 2004's Future Perfect. Six years passed between the release of the band's first two albums, and even though they did tour and perform one-off concerts fairly regularly between albums, the concert did have a refreshing return-to-form/comeback feel to it since it was the first time an L.A. crowd was able to see the band after having enough time to take in the newly released album.

Aside from some heckler annoyances here and there, the evening was pretty majestic. Highlights of the show included Greg Edwards' Transit Transit haunted piano ballad "Spots", the glitchy and mesmerizing "High Chair", which sounds like a great Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead track (and contains the inexplicably intriguing lyric of "No more passing out in banks" which is some great imagery), and Future Perfect's under two minute bulldozer "Robots in the Garden", which has the power to snap out anybody caught in a trance by the band's beautiful ballads.



The band certainly knows how magical all of their songs sound, especially a couple of their new ones off of Transit Transit that incorporate piano, electronics, and slow, expansive musical landscapes that all come together to create something beautiful. The band had adorned many of their amps, and stands, and other gear with glowing lights but kept them off until they played Transit Transit highlight "The Bouncing Wall". The lights suddenly flashed on for the first time in their set right when drummer-vocalist Carla Azar started singing at the beginning of the song. It was a small but significant chills-inducing moment that many people probably would not appreciate, but it's always good when bands playing on a small-scale stage can artfully incorporate that kind of lighting into a performance. Check out the performance of "The Bouncing Wall" here:



FYM gave Autolux's new album Transit Transit a well-deserved glowing review back in early August (which you can read by clicking HERE). In a nutshell, Transit Transit is one of the finest releases of 2010, expertly taking the best aspects of Future Perfect while building on them and expanding their sound with the welcome addition of piano and processed electronic percussion to give an a band that already sounds futuristic an even more cutting-edge feel.



FYM wasn't around when Autolux released their debut full-length, Future Perfect, in 2004. The album sounded (and no doubt still does to this day) simultaneously modern and ahead of its time, despite finding some old-school 90's shoegaze (Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine) in its DNA. Its ahead-of-the-curve qualities were even more emphasized by the resurgence of the shoegaze sound (The Big Pink, M83's Saturdays = Youth) that seemed to be led by My Bloody Valentine's monumental reunion tour that didn't happen for another three years after its release. The longer that Autolux took to release Transit Transit, the more it became clear that Future Perfect was a modern classic and one of the finest albums of the last decade (and beyond).



Gold Panda started the night by playing some of his signature ambient electronica, a fine companion to Autolux's sound.


(Gold Panda on stage at the Glass House)

Gold Panda seems to play the Los Angeles area so often that for Young Moderns just assumed he was originally from the area and was part of Los Angeles' electronica scene (Flying Lotus and Gold Panda sound like musical cousins). We were surprised to find out that he's actually from Glasgow, Scotland (an excellent city, by the way). So, way to go Scotland. GP has a great new album out, Lucky Shiner, and his remixes seem to pop up everywhere these days, including this soothing remix of Los Angeles' HEALTH track "Before Tigers":

AUTOLUX - TRANSIT TRANSIT: IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SHOEGAZE

This week sees the release of Los Angeles shoegaze trio Autolux's second album, Transit Transit. To say this album's release has been a long time coming is a major understatement. How long exactly? At the time of the release of Transit Transit's predecessor, Future Perfect, Rodney Dangerfield and Christopher Reeve were still alive, John Kerry and George W. Bush were in a heated clash for the Presidency, and in-the-know Ivy League college students were beginning to flock to a little website known as thefacebook.com.

We're sure that Autolux is tired of hearing about how six years went by between the releases of their first and second albums, and that writers should be focusing on the music of Transit Transit instead. Thankfully, we can report that their new album is well worth the wait.

There's little evidence that a drought in songwriting was the cause of Transit Transit's delay, as some of the best tracks on the album have been staples of their live show for years (this FYM writer remembers being blown away by "The Science of Imaginary Solutions" at the 2008 Make Music Pasadena Festival). The same shadowy intrigue that made Future Perfect a modern Loveless is intact on the new album, ensuring that Autolux's songs are as good as ever. The group did make successful attempts to expand their already grand range of sound. Perhaps the most significant change in Autolux's sound is the addition of piano. The keys are best put to use on the haunted space ballad "Spots" which wouldn't feel out of place next to "The Great Gig in the Sky" or "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" on Pink Floyd or Elton John's respective albums. A message coded in heartache may make singer Eugene Goreshter feel "drunk and sad," but don't let those words distract you from the fact that "Spots" is nothing but pure ecstasy floating on by.

If John Lennon had survived to incorporate state-of-the-art guitar and synthesizer effects into his songs, then he may have written something like "The Bouncing Wall", which starts off with two effects-processed chords not unlike a robotic "Imagine". Carla Azar's galloping Plastic Ono Band-esque drums kick in just before her steady, peaceful voice carries the song along its kaleidoscopic narrative.

With its title track and "The Science of Imaginary Solutions", the album respectively features opening and closing songs that were designed to begin and end an album as expansive as Transit Transit. On "Transit Transit", piano accompanies exuberant horns and backing vocals, but the sorrowful vocal melody reminds you that this album is more about isolation than celebration. "The Science of Imaginary Solutions" is definitely the climax of the album as it builds up the listener with lengthy intensity as Azar's voice echoes the opening track's horns in triumphant fashion. "Science", one of the finest songs of 2010, feels like the homecoming landing of some kind of epic sci-fi voyage, which, given Transit Transit's long road to release, may be a feeling that Autolux knows all too well.

The entire album is streamable over at their MySpace page, and is available for purchase HERE.

Check out the album opener, "Transit Transit", below:



Autolux has a few West Coast dates coming up:

August 11 - Great American Music Hall - San Francisco
August 13 - Hawthorne Theatre - Portland
August 14 - Neumo's - Seattle
September 17 - The Glass House - Pomona
September 18 - The El Rey - Los Angeles
And a yet-to-be-rescheduled date for the band's recently canceled Amoeba Hollywood gig at the end of this tour.