Lovers 1999

Arto Lindsay has come a long way since his early days as one of the prime architects of downtown New York's no wave sound, a period when he played untuned guitar in the noise trio DNA and served as the first vocalist for the Golden Palominos. Since then he's been a fairly ubiquitous guest artist and has pursued his own interest in the music of Brazil (where he was raised), as well as taking a detour into slightly avant-garde dance-pop with the group Ambitious Lovers. His solo work in recent years has gotten a bit mushy, perhaps, but Prize finds him tightening things up. The drum'n'bass textures that lay on the surface of his last album like laminate are more fully integrated this time out: "Prefeelings" combines a fractured breakbeat with salsa-fied acoustic guitar and saxophones; "Resemblances" smears subtle intimations of electronic mayhem under Latin percussion and guitar, while Lindsay sings lines like "Stay calm/Keep calm/Let the room outgrow the walls" in a dry, laconic voice.

The 1999 reissue of this album marks a total reconstruction and rethinking of the original LP, and such a complete break from the original album that its story could fill a book. Such Sweet Thunder was originally announced as a stereo and mono release, but only showed up in mono thanks to the technical problems inherent in early stereo in creating a concert-like ambience in which the performance seemed continuous. ~ AllMusic