***The fourth album from amazing Dutch four-piece Lewsberg. Since forming in 2016, Lewsberg have gone from strength to strength. Despite never really considering themselves as a ‘productive band’, together they have released three LPs, one EP and a series of cassettes and 7”s including 2022’s "Six Hills" which was released via Speedy Wunderground's singles series. Lewsberg are named after writer and fellow Rotterdammer Robert Loesberg, famous for his dangerous novel Enige Defecten from 1974. This is one of the band’s main sources of inspiration: the counterculture and big-city cynicism of the 1960s and 1970s. Yet there is also a softer side to Lewsberg’s music and lyrics. On Out And About, this side is more present than ever. Rudimentary pop and rock songs are deliberately kept bare, only occasionally embellished with a violin or organ part. In the lyrics, the tendency towards existentialism and black humour is nuanced with an almost naive openness and engagement. Recorded in Amsterdam in Spring 2023 with producer Yulya Divakova, Out And About sees founding members Shalita Dietrich (vocals, bass guitar), Michiel Klein (guitar) and Arie van Vliet (vocals, guitar, violin) joined for the first time on record by drummer and vocalist Marrit Meinema, who joined the band in the Autumn of 2021. Out And About embraces a collaborative spirit, allowing each member to contribute their unique songwriting talents. The result is a collection of tracks that capture the band's collective creative energy and their individual perspectives. The lyrics for "A Different View" were written via...
LP $23.50
10/27/2023
CD $13.50
10/27/2023
***"Sometimes change comes with big shocks, sometimes it comes with small steps. On In Your Hands, Lewsberg’s new album, a bit of both seems to be happening. Take the second song, ‘The Corner.’ A remarkably discreet song: a violin plays a simple melody; a gentle drum loop keeps its finger on the pulse. 'This brick is a brick to build,” it sounds, though a little later: 'This brick is a brick to throw.' A brick offers many possibilities, for those who want to see it. One time as a part of something bigger to come, the next time just as a simple stone, left on the ground. After all, most things are relative. Sometimes one can achieve more by breaking something than by building something. If you think you can determine which of the two is needed, you’d be fooling yourself. In Your Hands embodies the moment when all the bricks are there, but the wall has yet to be built. It’s a moment with perspective, a moment where everything still seems possible, but caution is advised. The album sounds both smaller and more spacious than the previous albums. Guitar chords are plucked instead of fiercely struck, the bass guitar is given more room for melodic explorations, the drum kit is dismantled to just a tom and a tambourine. There is doubt in the lyrics, but it’s a strong kind of doubt. A doubt that can stand in the way of a wrong decision but also invite for a good...
LP $19.95
05/13/2022
***BACK IN STOCK!!! The second album by Rotterdam-based LEWSBERG and their first US release. The quartet’s latest offering seeps into your consciousness in a different way to their debut, though their tendency towards existentialism and black humor is present throughout. Harsher in sound, but more humane in spirit, In This House refuses to let the listener settle for a single moment. The metallic, atonal guitar strum on opening song “Left Turn” leaves no room for discussion. This is Lewsberg at work. The unnerving sound of a revving car, handbrake on, suddenly coming to an abrupt and silent halt. Is the title of this opener a warning for the listener for the rest of the set, as if we’re going down Robert Frost’s “road less traveled,” or is it just a description of this lonesome character’s unexpected behaviour in this particular song? In This House is full of surprises. The teasing guitar break on “From Never to Once.” The two instrumentals “Trained Eye” and “Interlude.” The emotionally affecting ballad, “The Door.” And there’s the pairing of the last two tracks: the fatalistic “Jacob’s Ladder” and the wild, evocative “Standard Procedures”—-as if each piece works independently from the other, gazing back occasionally on what came before and, in turn, adding a different flavour to what comes next. “Cold Light of Day” and “Tbrough the Garden” are textbook Lewsberg; B songs, provocative and enchanting in their minimalism. Whilst “At Lunch” is seemingly innocent and carefree at the start, ultimately conjuring...
LP $17.75
05/08/2020