New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Loka release their third album 'Northern Oscillations' in October 2017, featuring the critically accaimed single 'Herculaneum Rock'. The album takes its influences from a range of diverse topics encompassing the positivity of family, friends, hope and love juxtaposed with the negativity of right wing politics, Brexit, bigotry, war and relationship breakdowns.
The band's first EP, 2003's 'Beginningless' was followed by their debut album 'Fire Shepherds' in 2006, both were released through
Ninja Tune. Their second album 'Passing Place' also on
Ninja Tune, was released in 2011, complimented by the renowned Beaumaris Seindorf Band. A radio session for Gilles Peterson's BBC
Radio 1 show followed, along with a tour of Canada where the band played at the prestigious Guelph Jazz Festival, before performing a string of dates across Europe.
Northern Oscillations features Anthony Braithwaite and Jim Noir on vocal duties, and is released alongside new single 'Everything Exploded'.
'Northern Oscialltions' Lead Tracks:
HERCULANEUM ROCK:
"The only song these days is cut and take, cut and take; but we can make it. Here's to us."
A song about Liverpool in the 1980s (the dead docks, the failed regenerations, the garden festival) and about hopes against hope, that might still resonate (there and elsewhere) today
EVERYTHING EXPLODED:
"Give me what I want, amplified and looped again. Turn it on and turn it on, a hall of mirrors without end."
A song about making music - pointless and essential - in the internet age; about taking yourself too seriously, while simultaneously lacking the confidence to take yourself seriously.
YES IS NOT NO:
"This is for the loud crowd in the party room as they do their dense dance."
A song about manufacturing consent, and settling for second best. About ambivalence, in politics and sex and logic puzzles: Yes is not No, and Yes is not "Not No". Yes means Yes….
THE NATIONAL MISTRUST:
"Each time you ask me to take on trust all's well and good, there's just a little bit less."
A song of quantitative unease, political manoeuvres, the mistrust that is us: of course we know deep down that we *will* get fooled again (and again).
REMEMBERED REMEDY:
"All together, count to three. Repeat the answers after me: I will find myself when I find beauty in the ordinary."
A song about the life that goes on, after the war to end all wars.
SIXTH HAPPINESS:
"I saw you first in sound; a little flicker on a screen. That is your signal: I collect. My lucky six: what will you be?"
A song about parenthood and the sixth of June: about near loss, waiting and hoping; about trains and wars and old films and confidence tricks and happiness in (ultra)sound.
THE OLDEST LIGHT:
"I tell you this so your joy may be unconfined. The oldest light is the last to leave my eyes."
A song about falling in love with atomic particles. Or a single about Singularity, death and gravity.
Videos: 'Herculaneum Rock': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otJ5hmDgdh0
"Loka exist outside of the narrow networks and genres of contemporary music...as a result their music is pure and unaffected...with permeating but subtle menace, typified by songs...which condense the Loka sound; repetitive synth riffs, swirling guitars, complex drums, and a skipping bass sound that shifts smoothly between reversed pulses and expressive melody." - Get Into This
"'Passing Place'is graphically cinematic and hauntingly beautiful, yet thoroughly groovy. You can see the movie this album was meant to score as you listen." - Pop Matters
"Immaculately constructed this is uneasy listening of the finest sort." -
Total Music Magazine
"For music as evocative as Loka‘s, words can do no justice." - Top40-Charts.com
"'Passing Place' is a wonderfully ambitious piece of work, confirming Loka as a band whose imagination knows no bounds." - DMC World Magazine
"You really do feel like you’re listening to something truly adventurous and crafted with a great deal of care." - Artrocker
"...deeply satisfying nods to Basil Kirchen, Ennio Morricone and 4hero." - Uncut
The Band:
Mark Kyriacou - Keyboards/Compositions
Tom Sumnall - Bass
Ian 'Budgie' Jones -
Drums and percussion
Stuart Macdonald - Guitars
Vocal contributions from Anthony Braithwaite and Alan Roberts aka Jim Noir
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Live Dates:
Thurs 12th Oct - the Eagle Salford
Sat 28th Oct - Emotion Wave Liverpool
Tues 7th Nov - Neuadd Ogwen Bethesda, North Wales
