many thanks to LH for archiving this on his press site – that first lux harmonium single from September 2011….
losingtoday.com (19.9.11)
Not officially out for a few weeks Van 239 sees the debut twin set from Luke Harmonium – better known to family and friends as Luke Jones – information is a tad sketchy but it seems that there’s a full length currently simmering on the back burner awaiting release in the near future. Performing as both a solo artist and as a quintet, Lux Harmonium can often be found sourcing sonic textures through the recycling / remodelling or refashioning of old guitar and instrument parts his most favoured to date being his ‘harmonic guitar’, best known for his adept finger picking guitar playing artistry Mr Jones taps loosely into the delta folk blues worlds of a certain Mr Fahey and with the application of a fair amount of magic dust crafts something of a demurring detail that’s clipped with a longing lazy eyed pastoral glow that recalls at various points Alasdair Roberts minus the traditionalist slant, a younger earlier career minded and less haunting sounding David A Jaycock and most notably Loren MazzaCane Connors. Dimpled with an autumnal hue and back dropped by a wheezing harmonium ’the bones you break’ – the chirpier of the featured brace – tenderly touches base with the more genteel moments of Lupen Crooks back catalogue – its lolloping canters, lushly woven warmth filled textures and crooked and creaking motifs are trimmed idyllically to a pastel traced faintness whose collective effect endow it with an acutely breezy albeit sleepy headed cosy glow demeanour. Mind you and in keeping with the typical tradition of these things we must admit to being a tad bit smitten by the flip sides picturesque instrumental offering ’camel bones’ – a free spirited gem whose timeless pastoral pageantry (reminiscent incidentally of Billy Mahonie head boy Gavin Baker’s collaborations with his father as the Baker Boys) is thrust unto what can only best be described as a age old dance with natures freewheeling and unfettered elements seemingly playing tic, tac toe with her land locked fixtures, sound wise very much informed by the much missed Fahey and Rose with the crystal clear clarity afforded to each and every scratch and scrape of the nylon strings appending a sense of the natural and the archaic with Jones’ use of space and drama perfectly pitched by the metering shift in pace from the lull of thoughtful murmurs to the onward rush of the chase – quite captivating if you ask me.
the sunday experience 