There’s an unseen history to Landroid – the High Desert-based band consisting of multi-instrumentalists Cooper Gillespie and Greg Gordon – a considerable lineage of long nights demolishing stages as Mad Planet and with bands like Bang Sugar Bang and Ultra Violent Rays. Gillespie and Gordon were a fixture of the Los Angeles punk/rock scene, veterans whose sonic instincts helped to shape the musical landscape in dramatic fashion. Eventually, they settled in Landers, California and began work on what would become Landroid’s debut album, Imperial Dunes, which they released in 2019 on their own Mojave Beach Records label.
Further afield from their punk roots, Imperial Dunes was more concerned with ethereal atmospheres and cinematic arrangements, constructed of moments which seemed to reflect the openness and barren beauty of their adopted hometown. On their upcoming sophomore record, Constellation, the band enlists the help of Joshua Tree singer-songwriter Nigel Roman to further flesh out their moody theatrics. The resulting collection of songs finds them navigating vast horizons of ephemeral arrangements, deconstructing and rebuilding their gauzy rock impulses into something which feels slightly familiar while being wholly their own – think of it as Beach House meets Computer World-era Kraftwerk with a touch of Syd Barrett’s madcap genius thrown in for good measure.
Their latest single, “Autonomous,” begins with some clear and crisp jangling guitar over a bit of Mercury Rev-inspired vocals. Gillespie and Gordon are able to create an expansive soundscape here which feels profound and almost voyeuristic, a woozy expression of self-discovery and independence. The production reminds me of how BJ Burton wrapped Low’s self-contained intimacy in blankets of graceful static and hiss, but then it all gets thrown into disarray as the song erupts in beautiful ribbons of welcoming catharsis. Drums gallop along, never distancing themselves from the other sounds on display, voices rise and settle in higher elevations while a dense fog of fractured pop pulses fully disengages from its terrestrial ancestry. It’s a wonder we don’t ascend alongside the music.
“’Autonomous’ is about looking back at your life and wondering how much of it was really yours,” Gordon explains. “It’s the reckoning that comes when you finally have to ask: was I making choices, or just following a script I never knew I’d inherited?”
He continues: “The song sits with a man in his final moments. He’s suspended in space, watching the earth recede before he’s pulled into the sun, and what surfaces isn’t regret exactly, but a devastating honesty. The drinking alone, the surviving instead of connecting, the belief that he was independent while repeating everything his own father taught him without ever questioning it. The questions that move through the song don’t resolve: Where do we go? Who’s to blame? Did I ever know which way the wind was blowing me?
It’s the woman’s estranged father, and his story casts a long shadow over hers because Constellation is about exactly this: the inherited patterns we carry and often don’t question.”
Listen to the song below.
Constellation is due out June 12 on Mojave Beach Records. Follow the band on Facebook and Instagram.
