out now: Looper - A Luminous Place [Mute]

Artist:
Looper

Title:
A Luminous Place

Label:
Mute

Cat#:
LOOPER6

Release Date:
24th November 2023

Format:
cassette, download & streaming

Tracklist:
01.
Faraway Near

02.
Blurred Stars

03.
Day Of Days

04.
Always Almost

05.
Cote D’Azur

06.
Heatwave

07.
Wandering

08.
Palm-Wine Drinkard

09.
South Beach Kiosk

10.
Summer On Roseangle

11.
Up High

12.
A Luminous Place

13.
Piano, Window, Piano

14.
Vanilla Skies

15.
Yink This

16.
The Drifter

17.
Words On Paper

18.
Glider

Press Info:
LOOPER [aka Stuart and Karn David] have today released an 18-track collection of short, perfectly formed lo-fi jazz-hop instrumental beats, titled A Luminous Place – available digitally and as a limited-edition cassette.

The album compiles lockdown-era recordings created by the duo as Looper, alongside four created under the pseudonym Mr Vertigo – a welcome addition to Looper’s unique catalogue. The album features three new tracks – ‘Piano, Window, Piano’, ‘Words on Paper’ and ‘Yink This’ – which further tell the story of what Looper have been doing over the last few years.

Listen to the dreamy melancholia of ‘Glider’, with distant guitars playing against a backdrop of floating melodies, below.

Stuart David explains, “These beats were originally written for inclusion on various lo-fi jazz-hop playlists and intended for peripheral listening. We have tried to maintain that listening experience while gathering these tracks together as one album.”

Looper were formed in 1997, when Stuart David (co-founder and bass player of Belle & Sebastian) and his wife Karn (an artist who directed the early B&S videos) collaborated for a show at Glasgow School of Art. The show was a degree show fundraiser for Stuart’s sister Karla Black – who received a Turner Prize nomination in 2011- and the performance was a multi-media affair incorporating TVs, super 8 film, 35mm slides and kinetic sculptures. Since nothing broke down and everyone clapped, they decided to keep doing it.

The band went on release four albums via Sub Pop, Jeepster & Mute, with many of their tracks appearing in film, including ‘Mondo 77’ which appeared in Cameron Crowe’s 2001 film, Vanilla Sky. Their debut album Up a Tree will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2024

The duo took a break from music, Karn went back to art school to study animation and Stuart turned his focus to studying literature and writing novels, before they came back to music, creating of a new body of work, the 5CD box set, These Things which presented their catalogue in stylistic groups, 2015’s Offgrid:Offline and 2018’s acoustic collection of classic Looper material, Quiet & Small.

Snippets: