Lotus Plaza

Floodlight Collective

(Kranky)

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Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt’s first solo album as Lotus Plaza has an incredibly personal feel to it, as if Floodlight Collective was made with the primary intention of satisfying its creator. And while most albums made in this manner veer into the realm of self-indulgence, Pundt has created a remarkably buried, but brisk, and tangled, but tempered sound. On “Whiteout” and “These Years”, his voice calls out from beneath a sonic abyss of twinkling effects and layered pads, not so much struggling to be heard, but rather enticing the listener to venture downward. Building on the first half of Deerhunter’s self-proclaimed genre of “Ambient Punk”, Lotus Plaza’s album dabbles in drone on the title track, while “Antonie” would easily have felt at home on Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s first solo album as Atlas Sound. For more inventive moments, see standout track “Quicksand”, which synthesizes ‘60s doo-wop sounding beats with a surf-like guitar, coated with gorgeous atmospherics.