If you missed this one first time around when it was released on Chicago indie label Graveface (home to Black Moth Super Rainbow, amongst others) then rejoice in the fact that it is not an excellent indie album that will be discovered in fifteen years time, because British indie stalwart Heavenly picked it up and released it on June 2nd. I covered it for my nitewise column exactly a year ago and gushed enthusiastically about it at the time.
Tuned to Love by English outfit The Loose Salute is an eleven-track opus of delicately countrified, and Americana inflected, indie pop that is full of unpretentious joy and melancholy, beautiful arrangements and thought provoking lyrics. It also has the wonderfully tragic, “Photographs and Tickets,” with its Don Henley referencing guitar riff (believe me it works).
Founding members Alan Forrester and Ian McCutcheon served time in Mojave 3. McCutcheon was also a member of British shoe gaze legends Slowdive, which spawned Mojave 3. Thus a taste for Americana had already been established. Velvety voiced vocalist Lisa Billson is no beginner either, and sang with English techno innovators Orbital on a number of their releases earlier in this decade.
I’m not going to gush too much again and will just say that this album is a great summer listen and a worthy accompaniment to those Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Byrds and Doors records that will be helping you through another endless California summer (even if you live in Croydon). By the way “The Mutineer” is meltingly gorgeous (the way a Cadbury’s Flake is over ice cream in the back of a hot car), and pedal steel guitar (my favorite instrument on the planet) pops up here and there, most effectively on “Why Do We Fight?”
I love this record, I surely do!!!!
Orr
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