The basics for “Tone Poem” came to Lunchbox’s Tim Brown one night as he sat in his car outside work. “I kept a small acoustic guitar behind the seat for such occasions, and when I got home to the basement recording studio I shared with partner and bandmate Donna McKean, I found a drum loop on the Evolver master tapes and began to create this hypnotic sound collage.”
The Evolver to which Brown refers is none other than the “lost” 2002 LP by the self-contained indie-pop duo. The most experimental album in the Lunchbox catalog, it was also the last thing Brown and McKean recorded before a dozen-year hiatus that finally ended with 2014’s splendid, unabashedly bubblegum comeback, Lunchbox Loves You.
With its dub-heavy Stereolab vibe, Evolver is a different trip. Recorded in the couple’s Oakland basement between stays in Berlin, a tour in London and drives along the breathtaking Mendocino coastline, Evolver has the unfettered feel of a stylistic travelogue. Somewhere in there lies a chamber-pop masterpiece amid the ambient morass of feedback, looping effects, tape delay and compact ’70s synths. The new video for its fourth track is premiering here as part of the ramp-up to the April 18 release of a remastered version of the album via Slumberland.
“The sounds came out of junk-shop ephemera—a vintage Everett chord organ, an ancient Mattel Optigan, a 1970 Micromoog—and an array of two-track recording decks,” says Brown of “Tone Poem.” “Drenched in tape-delay feedback, with backward bells from the Optigan chiming in rhythm over chords from the Everett, the song is a dream message from another world.”
Its storybook-surreal video is the work of Bay Area artist Kiki Petiford. “It’s her first frame-by-frame animation,” says Brown. “Inspired by the Art Nouveau aesthetic and the imagery found in the song lyrics, stars become angels and seeds bloom into flower goddesses. Twinkling stars and messy hand-painted interludes mimic how the song balances ethereal softness and noise.”
We’re proud to premiere Lunchbox’s “Tone Poem” video.
—Hobart Rowland
