Welcome to the latest installment of Media Maven’s Music Wednesday. Today, we’ll be talking about Lavender Diamond, one of my favorite new group’s to have come out of my hometown (L.A.) since The Bird and The Bee.
This summer, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Summer of Love, is an appropriate time to get into Lavender Diamond, who have plenty of that flower power sensibility in them. I don’t mean in a jam band, LSD kind of way, but in a joyful expression of life through music kind of way. The band’s music is beautiful, lush, textured without being complicated and immensely listenable. The lyrics are a bit hippieish as well, in a good way– there’s talk of peace on earth, lost love, and God, but all of it rendered through a pop music filter, keeping them light, familiar and wonderfully palatable.
The band’s first full-length major label release, Imagine Our Love, came out this spring on Matador Records (home to such illustrious indie acts as The New Pornographers and Belle and Sebastian), and is a fantastic amalgamation of folk pop uptempo tracks, performance art, country, and haunting slower songs, each with beautiful dissonant chords, hummable melodies, and perhaps most significantly, a stunning lead vocal track. The band’s lead singer, Becky Stark (perfect lead singer name, right?), has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard in a pop/rock band. She has more of a natural tone than a lot of popular singers, meaning you probably know someone who can sing as well as she does, but its the type of voice that, while ubiquitous in the 70′s, has all but disappeared from today’s pop music (some notable exceptions are Feist and The Bird and The Bee, though neither is what you would call radio-friendly pop music).
The band is also unique in that it designs all its own album covers and posters with animation drawn by comic artist Ron Rege Jr., who also happens to be a member of the band. You can check out some his drawings for the group here.
Later this fall, Lavender Diamond will be on tour opening for The New Pornographers, who will be touring to support the release of their forthcoming album, Challengers. If you want to catch them earlier, check out L.D. at the Brooklyn Siren Festival on July 21st.
I’ve decide to include two songs of theirs for you, a delightfully simple pop/folk number from Imagine Our Love called “Here Comes One,” and a slower one off their EP, Cavalry of Light, called “Please.” If you’re of the older generation, I think the soul of these songs will seem very familiar to you. There’s lots of Beatles/Carly Simon/Simon & Garfunkel-esque stuff here, all of it beautiful. “Please” in particular, is one of the more entrancing songs I’ve ever heard (for you music students out there, the use of the minor 7th interval in this track is simply breathtaking).
This type of music isn’t for everyone, but I’m willing to bet it’s for a lot of you.
You can download both songs here by clicking on the individual track names. If you take the time to listen (which you absolutely should!), please let me know if you enjoy it!
