Not From Here
Latvian Lovers
Reviewed by M. Teffer

Not From There's epic debut album, Sand on Seven, alternately lulled the listener's mind with layered washes of sound then blew it away with blasts of intense art-punk rock. It garnered them rave reviews in their native Australia, and won them an award for Best Alternative Release award in the Aussie equivalent of the Grammys.

Whilst Sand on Seven was the work of a hard-edged guitar band playing around with samples, loops and ambient textures, Latvian Lovers sees Not From There break out from the confines of "the rock", taking their taste for experimentation into new realms. The journey begins with Rhinoceros Tap Dance, which has a loping bass line and a creeping menace reminiscent of Tricky, before segueing neatly into… an outake from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack? Ah, that would be the good-time boogie anthem, Frisco Disco.

Things take a turn down a dark alley in Tokyo with a German-speaking beat poet for a guide when the noodling fuzz-guitar and xylophone of Sticky Wes follow. The Hitching Post weaves a dance beat, kettledrums, panting Funkadelic-ifed vocals and a spaghetti-western riff together, whilst 180 Yabaho! paints an aural picture of scoring a gram of coke in the middle of a mardi gras parade in Bogotá. And with a mudslide of valium-soaked guitars (that owes more than a little to the influence of Kevin Shields alluded to in the title), the punchdrunk Breakfast with Valentine is a slow-motion expressway through your skull.

Latvian Lovers - okay, it's a hokey pun of a record name, but don't let that put you off. Not From There make some seriously interesting music without taking themselves too seriously. They have created a richly textured studio album of murmured lyrics, delays and echoes, intriguing song structures and tasty nuances, that's many layers unfold with each new listen. Buying the sonic equivalent of an around-the-world ticket and roaming the globe in a 42-minute soundscape, Not From There come from a place without borders - both musically and geographically. True internationalists, they create "world music" for indie-rock kids.