The Lost Domain

Digitalis and Broken Face Recordings are proud to announce the arrival of the first widely available release from The Lost Domain, an amazing avant-folk/drone/jazz/improv ensemble out of Brisbane, Australia. More information about the disc can be found below.

The disc is yours for 100 Swedish Crowns, 10 Euros, $12 or the equivalent amount in £. Payment can be arranged by Paypal to thebrokenface@spray.se but cash in the mail will also do the trick nicely. Send cash to:

Mats Gustafsson
Brovägen 14
610 72 Vagnhärad
SWEDEN

The Lost Domain Sailor, Home from the Sea (Digitalis/BF)

The early morning is pleasantly warm but not yet sultry, and the place where we’re at is pretty much deserted despite the fact that the city of Brisbane is just a few Kilometers down the road. It’s like this natural vista, a spectacular maze of canyons, undisturbed forest and towering rugged sea cliffs with dramatic views over the Pacific Ocean, is holding its breathe to prepare for what is to come when the big city next door wakes up from its daily morning haze. Being here right now is a lot like being in the hill country. You're tucked away, removed. You have a sense of the real action being elsewhere, although it’s actually around the corner.

This is one of the imaginary homes of The Lost Domain, an avant-folk/drone/jazz/improv ensemble out of Brisbane, Australia that has been at it since the late ’80s, but due to virtually no promotion has remained in obscurity. With no labels even vaguely compatible in Brisbane, and none until recently in the rest of Australia, and no overseas connections, it was easier just to concentrate on enjoying making music and release it in limited editions on their own Shytone imprint. They figured that eventually their track record would speak for itself and with this release we’re definitely getting there. But if people just would have been able to hear the band’s epic folk/jazz improvisations earlier I am sure that they already would have a fan base of the same size as critically acclaimed outfits such as No Neck Blues Band or Jackie-O Motherfucker.

In a recent review of The Lost Domain’s Something Is… album on the always-amazing Adelaide label Rhizome I described their hypnotic sounds as if “the muted wailing of the desolate wind over some abandoned cabin in the forest would turn into a haunted piece of music”. That should give you an idea of what their low-key grooves and spiritual resonance is all about, but their brand new Broken Face/Digitalis split release actually shows more evidence of being influenced by the sea than the outback.

….like a song of longing, the sea rose & fell. We walked all day, a blue call ringing about our ears, gathering us up. At the end of one pathway, a lighthouse, the door varnished with age and a deep green – the old sailor shellacked in his home. We spoke and he listened, tobacco strands loose-woven about forefinger & thumb. And when – without haste or any signs of what we had said – he spoke to us, we watched his watery eyes as they led us away, away – beckoning always – home.

As if to harmonize with the mystique and obscurity of the actual music, all involved have bogus identities (sometimes more than one) and I can’t help but to ask how anyone possibly can avoid falling in love with such a combo. I know that we can’t and that’s why we’re so proud and genuinely happy to be able to spread the gospel about their magic music, somehow perfectly disjointed but still laden with unparalleled flowing beauty. Their genre-defying flow seems to come from the body just as much as it comes from sensitive interaction on an aural level and any evocation of place they can conjure, so it’s time to start moving…

Players: John Henry Calvinist, mr e, Papa Lord God, Frankie Lee & L Tone.

Instruments: Organs, voices, guitars, little instruments, wooden pipes, water, Roland space echo, clarinet, record player, beat box, pocket trumpet, shaker shells, floor, violin, bells, drums, percussion, weather, saxophone & Italian fuzz box.