more from
Lost Tribe Sound
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Black Box Animals

by Luton

supported by
archiippel
archiippel thumbnail
archiippel First try to support Musician
Grgry
Grgry thumbnail
Grgry Dark sultry atmospherics guide you through a luscious sonic landscape. This record is experiential on so many levels, it's beauty overwhelms at times evoking a kaleidoscope of emotions with every new listen. I am obsessed with it from start to finish . Favorite track: Ice Museum.
Joe Borreson
Joe Borreson thumbnail
Joe Borreson Stormy weather, a fire crackling and perhaps a ghost story in your hands set the mood & atmosphere that this album creates with a series of story-like sound vignettes.... darkly delicious, textural and flickering like the shadows on the wall. These are incredibly well crafted pieces. Fans of Deaf Center, Solo Andata, Svarte Greiner (in his lighter moments) and many things via Sonic Pieces or the Type label might release are a good reference poinst....just get it!! Favorite track: Spectres of Mark.
MDGanas
MDGanas thumbnail
MDGanas This album runs me through all emotions I could possibly exhibit. A great album throughout and well packaged cd as always from Lost Tribe Sound. Favorite track: Mount Kenya Imperial.
Lost Tribe Sound
Lost Tribe Sound thumbnail
Lost Tribe Sound Seriously one of the best and most underrated albums on the Lost Tribe Sound roster.
more...
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $3 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Normal Retail Price: $12
    • Glass Mastered CD
    • Japanese style gatefold heavy stock, reverse printed case
    • Limited to 200 Hand-Numbered Editions
    • Download Card
    ------------------------------------------------
    SHIPPING COST UPDATE:
    NON-US Customers interested in ordering multiple items, please email us directly at info(at)losttribesound(dot)com and ask for custom shipping quote. Should save a lot on shipping

    Includes unlimited streaming of Black Box Animals via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    edition of 200 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $6 USD or more 

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
Eternal Now 01:45
5.
6.
Archipelago 04:03
7.
8.
Elk Talk 02:16
9.
Submergence 04:20
10.
Ice Museum 04:28
11.

about

‘Black Box Animals’ is the debut release from the Italian duo, Luton, formed in 2017 by Roberto P. Siguera and Attilio Novellino. The album is a textural feast of classically composed phrasing and heavily tar-coated mechanics. Crawling abstract electronic structures meld seamlessly into a wide array of electro-acoustics, built upon a fine edge that is focused on mood as much as melody. With each piece Luton deliver their own curious venom, striving for contrast, never settling into a predetermined genre.

Contradiction permeates ‘Black Box Animals.’ Caution and weariness are etched into its themes. Luton feeds this uncertainty with its ability to create deeply affecting landscapes, as isolated and claustrophobic as they are warm and disarming. Within these dim seductions, a perplexing balance resides, something so familiar and primal, yet in the same breath so foreign and cryptic. In truth, the more human, acoustic aspects of Luton’s sound are so tightly woven to that of the machine, one would be hard pressed to find any edges at all.

‘Black Box Animals’ was recorded around Europe with Luton Sinfonietta Orchestra, during several sessions of improvisation and post production in Stockholm, Manchester, Munich and Turin. In addition to the orchestral scores, written by Rob, both musicians played various other instruments including classical guitar, ancient Russian zither, piano, electric bass and guitars, e-bow, pedals and electronics. All tracks were finalized by Attilio in order to find their otherworldly magic.

The album shares some of the moodiness and frantic delivery of Deaf Center or even Ben Frost’s works for film. Elsewhere, the intense drive and alchemic meld of electro-acoustic elements recall the likes of Rafael Anton Irisarri or Tim Hecker. While Luton find commonalities with these modern masters, ‘Black Box Animals’ makes an impression all its own, creating an array of complex emotions, leaving us feeling a bit dirty, humbled, inexplicably at ease, perhaps off guard just enough to reshape our damaged conscious into a form of its own likeness.

credits

released April 27, 2018

------------------------------------------------
Originally released on Lost Tribe Sound. See Catalog: losttribesound.bandcamp.com
------------------------------------------------

Best of 2018 - HEADPHONE COMMUTE

Best Ambient of 2018 - LOW LIGHT MIXES

Best of 2018 - BLOW UP MAG

Best of 2018 - "Luton are two Italian guys who live in different countries, and have met "live" only a few times, but that's enough to record one of the most moving albums of 2018" - SOUNDRIVE.PL

Best of 2018 - "It is absolutely brimming with dramatic and intricate detail using cinematic and electro-acoustic instruments. Every track tells a different story; some moments are sombre, some lighter, some a little darker and it’s virtually impossible for me to pick a favourite as this is best as a cohesive whole. ” - IRREGULAR CRATES (Harry Towell)

Featured on BBC6 MUSIC RECOMMENDS with MARY ANNE HOBBS Listen: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xtthp

Featured on BBC6 FREAK ZONE with STUART MACONIE
Listen: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09x8jbv

Festival Live PRESS: "There is something in Luton’s music remind us about a long sleep, a dream that does not want to end, which is both fascinating and at the same time, containing some dark, mysterious mystery, a mystery whose solutions are in vain. Compositions merged, went into one another, with no applause in between, with the audience unable to disturb the mood of the performance. Nobody tries to please anybody here, here the creativity and courage to create outside schematism prevails over the willingness to provide easy solutions"

"The black box records the sound of a splintering mind, the twisted debris of a hundred-and-one labyrinthine thoughts spilling out of containers." - FLUID RADIO (James Catchpole)

"Black Box Animals is an emotional logbook that seems to give us a mapping of ruined landscapes: a bird's eye on lost ghost towns and civilizations, crossed by the roar of the subsoil and fragments of timeless melodies" - ONDA ROCK (Michele Palozzo)

"The music of Luton (Roberto P. Siguera and Attilio Novellino)... dark yet imaginative, like the survival mechanism of prisoners. The body may be trapped, but the mind is still free to wander." - A CLOSER LISTEN (Richard Allen)

8/10 STARS - "Black Box Animals is an assured and fascinating debut that should absolutely be heard by fans of the sort of sorrowful beauty and simmering dread found in the score work of the likes of Clint Mansell and Ben Frost." - EXCLAIM! (Scott A. Gray)

"The contrast between loops, chamber music and more or less saturated frequencies has thus defined a variety of imaginary sound spaces, with perfect balance." - MUSIC WON'T SAVE YOU (Raffaello Russo)

"Luton has created a dystopian world inside this beautiful album of theirs, blending the intimacy of acoustic instruments with the unreachable, fluttering droning – like the contrasts of two highly different but equally sentient beings, finding some middle ground. Black Box Animals is a flawlessly crafted debut, and one can only hope for many more albums to come" - PIANO & COFFEE

"A remarkable debut in its ability to not be constricted by a single genre and also its sheer richness, a record where time and thought have been given to the music, its construction and it shows this in abundance. If you feel like exploring a world of sound, you won’t find better than Luton and Black Box Animals” - DRIFTING, ALMOST FALLING

"Their music is captivating... acoustic instruments including piano, violin, hammered dulcimer and percussion are artfully combined with field recordings and electronics. It’s spacious and evocative stuff worthy of multiple listens." UTILITY FOG (Peter Hollo)

"Black Box Animals engulfs whole swaths electronic processing, sweeping strings, woodwinds that evoke moods ranging from tension to wonder. Shadows shift within and between songs, stalking the borderlands of the world as it is and an imagining of the world as it could be." - TOME TO THE WEATHER MACHINE

"There’s a loose unfolding beauty to the music that feels live and ever evolving. You never quite know what will happen next. It’s an album that takes time" - CYCLIC DEFROST

"At times it’s spacious and sad, others strange and surreal, a claustrophobic fever dream that unfurls mirage-like across the folds of your brain." - VARIOUS SMALL FLAMES (Liam Doyle)

"A special reflective beauty!" - De Subjectivisten (Jan Willem)

"SCORE: 9/10 - "One of the more interesting releases that I have heard this year. It’s really easy to get lost in Black Box Animals. It has a sense of adventure and mystery that enriches the listener" - ITDJENTS

"La colonna perfetta, la lucida descrizione di una realtà che induce al blocco vitale, al ripiegamento su sé stessi, tutti chiusi nelle nostre scatole nere, un’opera dedicata alla poetica dell’abbandono, la fotografia impietosa di un’era forse destinata ad un’insana fine. Nero concreto" - SHERWOOD.IT (Mirco Salvadori)

"Atteso e inaspettato che emoziona, un suono che resta meta-genere nonostante le profonde presenze oniriche e che coglie alle spalle impreparati. Già in nomination 2018" (8) - BLOW UP (Dionisio Capuano)

"Gorgeous debut by Luton in their atmospheric, photosonic, neo-dramatic pieces. A slow roadway into swinging moods, minds and modes, where senses mix, flare up, and fade away" - HEADPHONE COMMUTE

"Luton blend neo-classical instrumentation, look over your shoulder drones & distant electronic storm rumblings in this dramatic, wonderfully arranged & starkly beautiful LP" - THE SLOW MUSIC MOVEMENT

4.5/ 5 STARS "A sort of journey diary with impressive diversity. Highly recommended!! - CHAIN D.L.K.

"It's really worth remembering the name Luton and follow their next steps" - NOWAMUZYKA

"Black Box Animals is a multifaceted, unspecified music, full of contradictions, great solutions and with huge potential" - SOUNDRIVE.PL

_______________________________________

Luton are Roberto P. Siguera and Attilio Novellino.
Strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion performed by Luton Sinfonietta.
Written and recorded between Sweden, U.K., Germany and Italy during spring/summer 2017 by Luton.
Mastered by James Plotkin.
Trailer footage taken from "Chimney Nest" by Tyler Macri (vimeo.com/user32005353)
Additional trailer footage taken from the Prelinger Archives
© Luton / Lost Tribe Sound, LLC
Published by Settled Scores LLC (ASCAP) 2018

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Luton

contact / help

Contact Luton

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Luton, you may also like: