ALBUMS & OTHER PHYSICAL RELEASES
‘It’s not often in today’s world that you come across an artist who has found a unique form of self-expression, seemingly operating on their own trajectory.’
– The Quietus
‘It’s not often in today’s world that you come across an artist who has found a unique form of self-expression, seemingly operating on their own trajectory.’
– The Quietus
May 27th, 2022
FUZZ CLUB Records
Los Angeles-based experimental producer Al Lover will release his new studio album ‘Cosmic Joke’ May 27th 2022 via Fuzz Club Records. A staple of the global psychedelic scene, Lover has spent nearly a decade fine-tuning a broken, abstracted form of electronica that pools together a tapestry of trip-hop, synthesised krautrock, dub and dark ambient. Utilising an arsenal of samples, drum machine, analogue synths and live instrumentation, Lover’s is a kaleidoscopic sound that’s J-Dilla, DJ Shadow and Lee Scratch Perry by way of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Kluster.
Central to Lover’s music is a desire to explore the fringes of psychedelic music and the common threads that run through its far-reaching styles, drawing elements from the past and connecting them to the future. Through the years he has released a number of studio albums and beat-tapes, remixed the likes of Osees and Night Beats, been resident DJ for the Levitation and Desert Daze festivals and collaborated with the likes of Goat, Anton Newcombe, Cairo Liberation Front and White Fence. Now, Lover returns with his latest studio album, ‘Cosmic Joke’ – a series of synthesised philosophical meditations on modern life, in all its tragicomic absurdity.
Talking about the record – which arrives following his 2019 ‘Existential Everything’ LP – Lover says: "'Cosmic Joke' came from observing the rising, compounded absurdity in recent years and seeing structures of normalcy dissolving. It’s my attempt to view these things as part of a higher-order process, through a metaphysical lens rather than an ideological one. It’s been an exercise in holding the paradoxical relationship of comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, growth and decay, scale and decline as part of an interlocked system that, at a deep level, is essential to how we interface with the world.”
November, 17th 2021
Head Medicine Records
Imagine a hidden speakeasy where everything secret is revealed and every vice is available, free from the laws and morality of the outside world. Now imagine being able to listen in, unannounced and unnoticed, as a neutral observer to every lurid word that’s spoken…
This is the introductory chapter of the brand new comic, The Eavesdropper Cafe, with an original mood music soundtrack by Al Lover. The Eavesdropper Cafe is a completely unique visual/audio experience, bringing together the worlds of comics and music in a way that has rarely, if ever, been done. This book and it’s soundtrack is the culmination of a 25 year dream by artist Brian Koschak, and we couldn’t be any more excited to finally bring it out into the world.
~ Includes a 7" Flexi Disc vinyl soundtrack featuring the "Entrance Theme from the Eavesdropper Cafe" along with a streaming 10 song instrumental soundtrack by Al Lover
~ 24 supra widescreen pages
~ deluxe 8 1/2" x 11" landscape-printed book with matte laminated cover
~ a 5x7 25th Anniversary Eavesdropper Cafe mini print
The concept of the Eavesdropper Cafe was born in the summer of 1996 and has been circulating in various stages of creation ever since. The original version was a Xeroxed book from '02 (a deluxe reprinting is available in my store as the EC Classic Pack) but this is a fully rebooted introduction to the world of The Eavesdropper Cafe. We're excited to FINALLY have this out in the world and even more so to begin working on the body of the book after all these years. We've got big plans for this project, so jump on the bandwagon now while it's still parked!
Shipping only within the US at the moment, but we'll soon be offering a special international package to make up for the ridiculous shipping prices.
Includes unlimited streaming of Soundtrack to the Eavesdropper Cafe via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more
March 5th, 2021
Subject X Object Music
Al Lover's latest, 'Subject X Object', is a meditation on the interconnectivity of the inner experience and outer world. Hypnotic loops pair with indulgent effects, producing a world in which the imagination can roam free between waking life and dreams. "In the human experience, the subject and the object are inextricably linked. While this can be perceived as a binary, a deeper look shows a different perspective. When noticing the interplay between the two polarities, one finds that this entanglement is connected by a third property. An unseen and often disregarded, binding agent. For example, when in the process of observing, there is the observer, the observed and the act of observation. The subjective / observer, the objective / observed and the "transjective" / act of observation. This triangulation is often overlooked by presupposing that one aspect of a dichotomy holds a dominant position, relative to the perspective. That the relationship is of little, or no importance and that these things are ultimately separate. This is a mistake. A deeper look shows that the interplay between the two is actually the gateway to a great mystery and something fundamental to the human experience. Emphasis on this concept can be found in much spiritual imagery, religious teachings and philosophical traditions throughout the world. Think of the Taoist yin yang, the Christian crucifix and Hegelian dialectic. All represent the crux of paradoxical opposites, how they interplay, their binding, inseparably and ultimate relationship. A oneness from three. In a constant cycle of birth, death and regeneration. There is deep wisdom to be gained from engaging with this concept. The effect can create a more profound understanding of the interconnectivity of life. Mediation on this idea can help foster an empathetic understanding of the world and an ethical approach to living in it. Our goal is to promote his philosophy with the hope that it will give people a more meaningful connection to others, the planet and to existence itself."
-Al Lover
June 28th, 2019
Hoga Nord Rekords
Höga Nord Rekords present Al Lover's 7" single Dark Matter Discotheque/Mark E. Moon. In these tracks, Lover's influences mainly stems from a decadent eighties New York or Paris. Listening to the opening bars of "Dark Matter Discothéque" you can tell that Lover is on to something new and different from his previous Höga Nord releases. In some ways you hear similarities to Zodiak Versions, 2015 but on these two tracks of the 7", Lover has left the German regions of Europe and the '70s behind to instead embrace an updated '80s sound.
February 1st, 2019
Stolen Body Records
Recorded sporadically between 2016 and 2018 while away from his typical studio situation, the latest from producer and artist Al Lover continues a thread of colorful but meditative inner journeys -- what he playfully calls "music to be introspective in public to." What began with anxious spirals of dubbed-out psych atmospheres on Interference Patterns finds some resolution on Existential Everything, with a dynamic flow inflected as much by Al's kosmische influences as experimental trap. While Interference Patterns was relatively short, focused, and tense, Existential Everything is sprawling and relaxed. Seen together the segue amounts to a long, rich comedown after a dark but engrossing head-trip.
March 31, 2017
Hoga Nord Records
The six tracks on this picture disc EP holds the essence of what psychedelic dance music is about – escapism. Where to escape? Well, due their sound, CLF could just as well be from where their name implies because this record oozes more of northern Africa than of northern Europe. It puts the listener outside of time somewhere on the banks of the Nile, just before dawn.
The combination of Al Lover’s use of samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and analog synthesizers, clashes beautifully with the fierce energy of the CLF’s sound of cracked software, American hip-hop, Euro house and Arabic rhythms. This is the score to the next
February 10, 2017
Crash Symbols
Described by Al as a companion “for bad trips,” Interference Patterns is a sharp turn into a darker vein of the Kraut sounds introduced with last year’s Neuicide! 10” for Fuzz Club (an homage to Neu! and “New York Rockabilly Futurists” Suicide). It also feels ironic in 2017 -- while his first Crash Symbols cassette opened with a track called "How Are Things On Planet Earth?," this one ends with "Hellucinations." Compared to both earlier releases though, Interference Patterns is more cerebral, more hypnotic, more dub, and as it happens made in Paris, with an ensemble of cheap but sympathetic table wines. He cites Rodelius and Moebius, though the outcome here is distinctive, unintentionally reminiscent of the resonance associated with traditional Mongolian urtiin duu, “long songs.” Loping and esoteric, Interference Patterns has a sense of vastness and relentless, generative movement, that conjures a world of acid-soaked and wind-dried electronics. Still, the focus is on finding the self in an infinity of chaos and relativity, moving forward: mastering the patterns of life in a holographic universe.
September 12, 2016
Fuzz Club Records
Austin's Al Lover has managed to become a staple of the psychedelic community without a guitar in sight. The producer has gained wide-spread notoriety for his melding of contemporary and past garage and psych-rock into harsh yet spacey abrasive beats.
Neuicide! is an obvious tip of the hat to two ground-breaking bands that are ironically revered by today’s nostalgia-drenched underground music scene, German Kraut pioneers Neu! and New York proto-punks Suicide.
November 27, 2015
Reverberation Appreciation Society & Hoga Nord Rekords
San Francisco-based producer Al Lover has spent the last several years evolving a unique approach to psychedelic music by way of exploring the common threads within it’s various genres. His newest effort, ‘Zodiak Versions,’ sees Al exploring what he views as two musical styles that have defined modern underground music culture, Jamaican Dub Reggae and the German experimental “Krautrock” from the 1970’s. The main point of interest is how these genres were translated through the lens of Post Punk, Hip Hop and Post Disco Electronica to create what we see now as contemporary ‘Indie’ music.
