southern records

Five years. It felt like eternity and it has indeed been a long time waiting for the most recent release from Stars of the Lid, in the end the waiting was worth it since their long awaited album And The Refinement Of The Decline is simply is a masterpiece. Filling two compact discs or three long playing records, and clocking in at over two hours playing time, therefore representing the enormous amount of work and effort that had been put into this record, it is so much more than another monotonous drone record. It creates impressive and stunningly beautiful soundscapes using not only their typical drone guitar sound but, not unlikely to the previous records, it heavily employs many other instruments such as cellos, thus creating a wonderful, melodically rich and orchestral symphony. [And Their Refinement of the Decline] sounds melancholic and yet like endless beauty at the same time. Undoubtedly, with this record Stars of the Lid are, once again, leaving the boundaries of the typical drone-band record cliché far behind and create a universe for their own.

But [And Their Refinement of the Decline] isn't just a magnificent record that stands alone, but it is part of a long series of records and the product of twelve years of creative collaboration and fruitful work between Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie that started when they put out the first Stars of the Lid record, Music for Nitrous Oxide, back in 1995. Since that first release which had been recorded on an old four track tape deck, the Stars of the Lid evolved not only to more sophisticated forms of recording, but also sonically from record to record, each one being a masterpiece of its own. Also, each new record always seemed to outshine the expectations that had been placed upon them before release.

The record that followed Music for Nitrous Oxide is called Gravitational Pull vs. The Desire For An Aquatic Life. Released on Sendimental Records (and re-released on Kranky in 1998) it mainly featured extensive drone-guitar soundscapes. During that time, the band also played many concerts that were always completed with video-installation by their friend and visual artist Luke Savisky. Their concerts quickly became famous and gained a reputation for being an incredible and unforgetable performance of sound and light.

In 1997, Stars of the Lid would start to work with Kranky and the first result of that collaboration was the double LP/CD The Ballasted Orchestra, which many magazines proclaimed as the band's most spacious, complete and compelling work to date. The basic sound of drone-guitars remained, but the band reached out into a wider range of sounds, melodies and thus creating a richer and colorful record. The band then toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Europe and played with bands such as Bedhead and Angels of Light. Understandably, the music of Stars of the Lid inspired many people, but an artist named Jon McCafferty (who had contributed the cover art for R.E.M.'s Green album) contacted the band, explaining how he listened to Stars of the Lid as he painted. This ultimately led to a collaboration where he created the artwork for the next record Per Aspera ad Astra on which the band recorded him painting in his studio, to which they added their own compositions. Again, their music grew more complex and once again, the variety of instruments was enlarged. In particular the presence of cellos on [Per Aspera] was a major change and also was a hint of the ambitions Stars of the Lid had for their next album.

In an interview Brian McBride said that until that point, neither him nor his collaborator Adam Wiltzie considered themselves as composers, but finally they both had a change of mind and ultimately they were able to embrace the idea that they both indeed are composers. This change of mind is clearly audible on their next record The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid not only because they expanded their arsenal of instruments with piano, horns, and extensive string-sections, but also in the structure of songs which had taken a more classical form of different themes and their variations, phrases and different layers. In fact, many see the culmination of the band's work in that record. But as mentioned in the beginning, five years later, the Stars of the Lid surprise once more by bringing out [And The Refinement of the Decline]

Generally, even though all the records resemble themselves, each one of it has its own qualities and therefore they are also hard - if not impossible - to compare as each one seems to be a statement on its own, a culmination of a creative period. If their records were chapters in a book, then each chapter would be a complete brilliant story in itself with a proper ending, but yet leaving the possibility of a continuation in the next chapter. Personally, I think what connects all those chapters is the Stars of the Lid's ability to create breathtaking soundscapes expressing melancholy at the same time as bliss. However, what is beyond discussion is the fact that no matter how long it's going to take until their next record will come out, there will always be the whole series of amazing Stars of the Lid records to listen to and they never get boring, they never lose their magic.

Stars of the Lid's latest record [And Their Refinement of the Decline] as well as most of their previous records, including [Gravitational Pull vs. The Desire For An Aquatic Life], [The Ballasted Orchestra], [Per Aspera ad Astra] and [The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid] are available from the Southern Records webshop.