Past Releases

Formed in 1964, The Jazziacs would play with McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Saunders, and other jazz greats. They would change their name to Kool & The Gang in 1969, sign with De-Lite Records and release their self-titled debut the following year. 1973’s Wild And Peaceful featured the Gold singles “Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging.” The end of that decade and beginning of the next saw them collaborating with producer Eumir Deodato for a string of Platinum albums—Ladies Night, Celebrate!, and Something Special. They continued through the 80s with more Platinum albums, including Emergency, which featured four Top 20 singles.

The use of “Jungle Boogie” in 1994’s Pulp Fiction brought a new generation of fans to the group, and David Lee Roth invited them to open for Van Halen’s A Different Kind Of Truth tour in 2012, after catching their set at Glastonbury. 2016’s Kool & The Gang And Friends! had them collaborating with artists including Sean Paul, Angie Stone, Redman, Jamiroquai, Lisa Stansfield, and more. Kool & The Gang have won multiple Grammy® and American Music Awards, have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and have sold over 70 million records worldwide!

Ten years after its release, Wye Oak’s Civilian remains a raw, sinewy punch of a record—bleak and intense and lonely and self-assured all at once. It marked both the ascension and death of Wye Oak, or at least a version of it. Now, a decade later, Civilian + Cut All the Wires: 2009–2011 delves back into that pivotal record and adds a lost album of 12 unreleased tracks and demos to Civilian’s universe.

Sonic paradoxes abound: The mellow “Sinking Ship” is preceded by the wall-of-sound grunginess that roars through “Half a Double Man.” A pared-down acoustic Daytrotter live session of “Two Small Deaths” dovetails into the jangling “Holy Holy” demo. The closing lyrics over the frenetic, screeching feedback of “Electricity” lend the anniversary release its title: “There’s nothing about you that I don’t adore / Show me these rooms and I’ll show you the way to the door / Walk me through / I’ll cut all the wires and spend my life with you.”

Lowlight’s most recent show was Feb 28th 2020, at The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ. As always, it was a great time full of friends and music. We ended up canceling our next show in Brooklyn. Like many, our lives had changed practically overnight. Just when we were getting the littlest bit of traction, it was a major blow. It became clear that If we were going to push this band forward, we needed to make a sharp left turn.

I remember talking to Rey (bass, MPC) over the phone, and he was told me, “I have this thing I’ve been working on… I’m not sure if it’s ‘on-brand’, but I’ll send it anyway…” That thing was later dubbed “Quarantino”—a convenient mashup of Tarantino the circumstance we were in. We had always written songs in rehearsal, but in the spirit of experimentation, we started tracking remotely over Rey’s foundation of drums, samples, and bass. Renee (vocal, guitar) was living with us at the time. We sat on zoom meetings by day and nights were spent working our way through the song… keys, guitars, lyrics/vocals. Five distinct sections emerged, and we began treating them as such, giving each movement its own unique character. Inspiration got thrown around… Tom Waits, Roxy Music, J Dilla, Bernie Worrell… a somewhat disjointed cluster of influences. This was definitely our “let’s do that thing we always wanted to try” –song. Multi-gong percussion, mega-arpeggiator synth for no reason, 808s, what we felt (at the time) was an indulgent Gilmore guitar riff… all in the name of art and not much else, really. Everything felt uncertain, which left us free to do what we wanted, as if we had just started the band and literally had nothing to lose by experimenting.

Through a combination of in-person and remote recording, the song took shape. We planned to release the single on its own, but we were struck by the inspiration we found in this new scenario. Another six songs flew by with the same process. The world was quiet and tense while Lowlight was buzzing with an explosion of new work, huddled in our secluded sanctuary. Our efforts eventually blossomed into a full length album, Strange Light, which will be released on August 13th 2021 with Mint 400 Records.