The Slumberland Records revival that's been happening over the past few years is a story of past and present. Renewed interest in the label is partially due to a new generation of bands (the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Crystal Stilts, Veronica Falls) that have put out solid records on the California-by-way-of-D.C. imprint; it's also been kindled by reunion shows like Slumberland's 20th anniversary concerts and this year's Chickfactor 20 gigs.
But even in the midst of all this nostalgia and revisiting, certain gems of the label's back catalog remain unplundered. One such record is 1995's Everyone Must Touch the Stove, which up until now was the sole LP from Washington, D.C.-area trio Lorelei. It remains overlooked because it doesn't quite fit the narrative: In most corners, "Slumberland" is still considered a synonym for "dreamy" or even "twee," but the immersive Stove is full of creeping, diffuse post-rock nightmares. Still, the fact that Lorelei haven't been one of the touchstones of the label's revival and continued influence shouldn't come as much of a surprise: they were misunderstood in their (very brief) heyday, too. In a 2009 interview, guitarist/singer Matt Dingee recalled something that happened when the Wedding Present's David Gedge, a demigod of the early-90s indie pop circle, caught a Lorelei show. After their set, Gedge said to him, "I like your guitar sounds and everything, but for me it's about writing songs."
Patient listeners will certainly echo Dingee's response: "But we have songs." Though their local compatriots included D.C. contemporaries and labelmates Black Tambourine, Whorl, and Lilys, an appreciation of Lorelei demanded slightly different ears. A shoegaze influence is the common denominator in all these bands, but Lorelei were more interested in creating detailed post-rock textures than melodic pop hooks. Drummer Davis White and bassist Stephen Gardner erect steady yet fluid supports for Dingee's distorted reveries, in which elements of emo, jazz, and math rock occasionally bubble up. There are moments on Stove, like "Throwaway", that recall the kind of magic that post-rock sorcerers Disco Inferno were conjuring around this time across the pond: Dingee's guitars melt, morph into sirens, and blend with muffled voices picked up via radio frequencies. Which is another way that Lorelei went against the grain. A lot of DIY bands were interested in stripping their songs down to their most minimal elements and letting the seams show. Lorelei did just the opposite: they were three ordinary dudes casting large shadows and projecting epic illusions. Listening to Stove and their sprawling Asleep EP, it's still hard to believe that there were only three people in the band.
Lorelei dissolved and reformed under equally ordinary circumstances. In the mid 90s, Dingee moved to California, and a couple of years ago he moved back to the D.C. area; the band got back together just in time for the Slumberland 20th anniversary shows in 2009. Now, almost two decades after their debut full-length, comes their second LP, Enterprising Sidewalks (most apt song title: "Sorry For the Patience"), on which Lorelei's sound is as challenging, immersive and adventurous as ever.
The years have cooled off some of their emo leanings, as they must. Compare the surreal, off-kilter romanticism of Stove songs like "Newsprint" and "Windmill" ("She smiled as he placed his warm hands on her apple cheeks/ He places his foot in the corner of her mouth") with Dingee's dry, mock-bureaucratic delivery on "Outside Through the Keyhole" or "Hammer Meets Tongs" ("What we need's a better management plan/ And an enterprising sidewalk"). But in the moments when Dingee's vocals feel too monotone, his strings pick up the slack-- as ever, his guitar playing is far and away the most expressive element of Lorelei's music. "Majority Stakes" crescendos with soaring, steely noise that transforms into aqueous arpeggios, while the expansive "Three Interlocking Screens" gives the band space to experiment with all sorts of textures and tones. The tighter pop numbers are there too ("Wound Up", "Sorry For the Patience"), but as ever Lorelei are at their best when they take the time to unfurl their more impressionistic ideas.
"We all have sharp ideas, hear another and I'm bored to tears," Dingee drones on the album's most biting track, "Let Go of Our Ego". Though it doesn't direct its malice towards anything or anyone in particular, it could perhaps serve as a commentary on a few cultural concepts that have cropped up since Lorelei last put out a record: reality TV, "indie fame," or internet-fueled overshares. The chorus certainly feels like a retaliation against that last one: "I've got nothing to say today, to you or anyone you know." But as fittingly unceremonious and ego-free a record it is, Enterprising Sidewalks proves that that statement isn't so. Even if it doesn't quite match the heights of Everyone Must Touch the Stove, Enterprising Sidewalks gestures towards the more obscure corners of the band's (and the label's) back catalog, showing the next generation of Slumberland fans that the vault holds more than just sweet dreams.
