Luton is an ambient / drone project from Italy and the latest act to put out a record on the reliably unpredictable Lost Tribe Sound. The album, Black Box Animals, is the debut Luton release, and explores the murky depths of a variety of genres—from minimal drone to soaring modern classical, what Lost Tribe Sound describe as “a textural feast of classically composed phrasing and heavily tar-coated mechanics.”
The duo, comprising of Roberto P. Siguera and Attilio Novellino, moved across Europe to record the album, including stints in Stockholm, Manchester, Munich and Turin. In addition to the orchestral scores, composed by Siguera and performed by Luton Sinfonietta Orchestra, both musicians also contributed a variety of instruments, including classical guitar, ancient Russian zither, piano, electric bass and guitars, e-bow, pedals and electronics. And this diversity has the desired effect. From the ominous distorted thumps that see out opener ‘Mount Kenya Imperial’, to the ghostly pulsing and mournful strings of ‘Sodermalm Phantom Cab’, the album is enveloped in an evocative and often unsettling atmosphere. At times it’s spacious and sad, others strange and surreal, a claustrophobic fever dream that unfurls mirage-like across the folds of your brain.
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The album’s shortest track, ‘Eternal Now’ is slow and subdued, led by ponderous piano and a gentle ambience that threatens to grow like a cumulonimbus before dissipating as quickly as it arrived. But it’s a portent for the rest of the album, a sign that storm clouds (meteorological or otherwise) are always on the horizon.
Not that every song provides a cathartic release. ‘Black Concrete’ is taut and reserved, holding significant power in what it leaves unsaid, while ‘Night Avalanche’ feels like the onset of a blizzard, dark clouds obscuring the moon as snowflakes tumble like ash and the distant peaks begin to creak under the extra weight. ‘Submergence’ begins sparse and crystalline, developing into something twitchy and unsettling, a latent madness veering just out of sight, while ‘Ice Museum’ is as cold and cavernous as the title suggests, with the funereal solemnity of an empty cathedral.
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Final song ‘Silent Fireworks’ also feels grandiose, but on a much smaller scale. It’s jaded and elegiac, like a late afternoon breeze shifting a lace curtain in an abandoned home, the owner long dead but the weight of history sitting heavy as the dust on the possessions within. It’s a very strong end to an album that keeps surprising to the last, music with such depth and feeling that it feels almost tangible.
You can get Black Box Animals on CD and download via Lost Tribe Sound on the Luton Bandcamp page.
