The wild bunch (Lewis, Chris, Jessica, Jan, and all)

Quite incredible, but true, the following story! In the spring of 1983, a man named Randall Wulff (aka Lewis) turned up at the Music Lab Studio in Los Angeles with a white Mercedes convertible, an attractive girlfriend, perfectly styled hair, and a (succinctly put) handful of ethereal synth-pop-folk songs. Wulff commissioned photographer Ed Colver, best known for documenting the West Coast punk scene, to shoot the stark monochrome album cover. By the time Colver realised that the cheque had bounced, Wulff had already disappeared. There were rumours that he had gone to Las Vegas or possibly Hawaii, but most likely he had returned to Alberta, Canada, where a quarter of a century later a vinyl collector named Jon Murphy found a copy of ‘L’Amour’ at a flea market. Private pressing.

What a strange round of songs! If you find sounds that are constantly moving close to their own dissolution exciting. ‘The closer you listen, the more unsettling – and yet enticing – it all sounds.’ Randall Wulff had painted his masterpiece when it came to disappearance and submersion. If David Lynch had heard this album back then, he would have transported one or two songs from it into the Twin Peaks soundtrack. And Angelo wouldn’t have complained. Neither would Julee Cruise.

Light in the Attic made the album available years back. By now, „L‘Amour“has turned into a nearly buried treasure again. I returned to this album after writing an email to Jan Bang after looking at this year‘s Punktfestival that will probably see some „flowflow members“ amongst its audience between Sept 4 and 7. The new program – HERE – is full of highlights, anongst them the première of „After The Wildfire“, a new spoken word-project by Erik Honoré, Trygve Seim’s „Different Rivers“ (25 years after its ECM release, followed by an unforgettabele review of Konrad Heidkamp in „Die Zeit“), and Jon Balke presenting „Skrifum“ live on stage.

And, what makes me return to the unabashed romantic songs – „romantic“ with a twist – by Lewis, Jan Bang‘s „Reading The Air“, is a guy named Chris Duncan who‘ll be joining the artists of PUNKT 2025. Of course it was Jan Bang who discovered him. We changed a few mails in regards to that rare breed of uninhibited romanticism with a decent quantum of blue & noir. I highly recommended to him, Jessica Pratt‘s opus, „Here In The Pitch“.