Album Notes

It’s daunting to describe a band who does everything and anything it wants to – kissing your girlfriend’s collarbone before coming to your rescue in a streetfight.

Following the bootheels of the re-release of their debut album, Stress Echo (Aug. 2006, Indierect), Lomita maintains their trademark diversity on the already critically-respected new release, Downtown Mystic (Aug. 2007, Indierect) but forges ahead to recklessly embellish pop music with their own convictions – incorporating funked-out sex-jams, psychedelic mindfields, noise symphonies, and punk swagger into a luscious pop sound recalling those of The Church Star Fish, Tom Petty You’re Gonna Get It, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Zombies Odyssey and Oracle, and Sonic Youth Goo.

“We throw a wide range of influences into the mix and that makes us hard to define” primary vocalist Ray Jackson said. “All of our styles can coexist to form a cohesive sound and people either connect with it or get confused by it.”

Owning a professional studio, the Lomita Opry House, the band has been able to afford month upon month of experimenting and recording to craft a headphone-worthy record from start to finish, recalling the no-filler, no-bullshit craft of classic album making.

“There’s a reason things sound wrong. We wrote the most straight-ahead pop tunes and then put our own touch on them. We’d shatter songs and then try bringing them back together,” Peroux said. “There’s tons of layers in the tracks that are hard to hear on first listen as well as a conscious sonic transition between songs.”

Lomita’s instrumentation is as diverse as their influences; the band employs a musician’s wet-dream of guitars, a complex city of effects pedals, several electric pianos, bass, drums, and even accapella intonations. In the capable hands of some of the finest young musicians, the sounds created are beautifully thick, haunting, intense, soulful, and ecstatic all at the same time.

All of their talents and creative energies collide at their most arrestingly powerful points during the live shows. There are few bands that know equally well how to incite a feverish dance riot, drown the crowd in whisky tears, as well as unleash an orgy of instrumental feedback breakdowns.

For this reason, legends like Alejandro Escovedo and James McMurtry as well as upcomers like The Ponys have invited the band to share the stage – watching Lomita take over the show with a sense of honest inevitability, turning heads and making believers out of the jaded indie rock scenes.