Lushy

"This is a refreshing update of the lounge/exotica genre, with some unique fusions and syntheses, which can shamelessly and seamlessly blend in with a playlist of Denny, Les Baxter and Esquivel, and could just as comfortably fit in amongst a mix with Devo, the B-52s and even Portishead." -BY, Copenhagen - B.Y. Copenhagen

“It's this confluence of the kooky and cool, the copping of influence cut with honest to goodness solid songwriting...Lushy proves with its fun, fizzy debut that it can definitely chill behind the velvet rope." **** -Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide - All Music Guide

"Like a Midwestern tourist in a garish Hawaiian shirt, Lushy stands out as an anomaly in the Emerald City. The local ensemble tiptoes lightly through Esquivel and Martin Denny's jungle, stopping for an occasional sips at the fountain of 1960's French pop and Latin jazz...they keep it sultry and tongue-in-cheek." -Tizzy Asher, Seattle PI - Seattle Post Intelligencer

"With cold weather just a few short months away, Lushy's self-titled debut will be the ideal platter to pop on the hi-fi when the need hits for a little sonic blast of summer. The disc evokes warm nights on the beach, hipsters in madras shorts and Lilly Pulitzer shifts, and paper parasol-bedecked coconut concoctions." -Kathleen C. Fennessy, Tablet Newspaper - Tablet Newspaper

"Memorable and catchy…Lushy's music carries itself with a cool benevolence." –Chris Greenland, Splendid Magazine - Splendid Magazine

"So Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg take their Deux Cheveux out for a spin round the Bois de Bolougne, before stopping off at their favorite Tiki lounge. While there, they toast Singapore Slings with Tim and Letitia Stereolab, while in the background Martin Denny conducts the Nairobi Trio in a scintillating selection of his greatest exotica hits and misses. Yeah, Lushy's kind of like that - tart, tipsy, humoresque and thoroughly entertaining post-space age jazz." MLH-Shredding Paper Magazine - Shredding Paper Magazine

"Their brand of electronica is a reinvention of that hip style of mod '60s music that one would experience while watching a Peter Sellers film, circa 1966 -- or a Guy Ritchie British thriller, circa 2006." -Mark Hooper, Arkansas Times - Arkansas Times

"If the weather has got you down, you need a hearty helping of Lushy—Seattle's best lounge-pop combo and a surefire cure for winter doldrums. While everyone else is singing about Santa and Rudolph, Annabella Kirby and company have concocted a fizzy, fun holiday album full of high jinks and highballs (not to mention cheese balls) guaranteed to get you back in the holiday spirit(s). In fact, "Snowflake Surprise" might be one of those rare seasonal albums that stands up to year-round spins. Effervescent and eclectic, Lushy are the perfect soundtrack for any time of the year, but the band's breezy, tiki-fueled cocktail music is a welcome ray of sunshine in the heart of winter." Barbara Mitchell-The Stranger - The Stranger

Old School, New Music: Lushy

Sounds Like: The Jetsons with swizzle
sticks and distortion pedals
Typical Song Title: “Bottles, Bugles,
Bright Shiny Bells”
Groupies: Cocktail lovers wearing
skinny ties and sunglasses
Web Site: lushy.com


Musicians have always borrowed stylistic elements from their predecessors—we’d be willing to bet even Cro-Magnon man repurposed a catchy rhythm or two from Neanderthal rockers. And lately it seems Seattle bands are staging a “revival of the fittest” of sorts—recycling all manner of old sounds and refurbishing them with their own unique and modern spin. Bringing to mind retro riffs by everyone from the Rolling Stones to the Foggy Mountain Boys, from 1920s Parisian cabaret acts to 1960s space-age cocktail numbers, local musicians of multiple genres are looking back to move forward. Hey, even the jug band has returned, so get out your washboard and play along.


Lushy
It’s hard to imagine a band called Lushy being anything other than fun. Keyboard/sax/flute/drums player Andy Sodt freely admits the group was created around cocktail lounge culture. He and guitarist/bassist Matt Nims met in the early ’90s when they played ska together with the Tiny Hat Orchestra. They knew vocalist Annabella Kirby from the local music scene and, in 2000, roped her into a recording project in Sodt’s basement. For two years, Lushy was a studio-only project. “We just never came out of the basement,” says Kirby. “We were making all these songs until one day I was like, ‘What are we doing? We have to play this for people!’”

She called some friends in Palm Springs who were throwing a Tiki event and booked their first show. “We got a distribution deal that same week,” she says. “We’ve been playing out ever since.”

Marrying spacey, “cocktail-y” sounds from the ’60s and ’70s with their own offbeat attitude, the band sounds like a vinyl record you might find propped on Austin Powers’ mini bar. Even though they’ve been at it for a decade now, there’s a newness in their music that makes you feel like grabbing a drink and seeing where the night goes.

Ten years is a long time for any band to stick together, particularly a throwback pop band in a city that prides itself on testing rock’s limits. But with four albums of original material under their belt and two more in the works for release this year, Lushy’s greatest asset may be that they’ve never been so much of the Seattle music scene—perhaps a byproduct of those years in Sodt’s basement, where it was easy to lose track of the music other local bands were making. “It always seems like we’re the exact opposite of every other band [in town],” Sodt says. Nims adds that their music has “never had anything to do with what’s been happening here. That’s not really by choice; it’s just…what feels progressive to us.”

Progressive cocktail
Get groovy Saturday night at The New Frontier Lounge.

Lushy will up the swank meter Saturday at The New Frontier Lounge
by Matt Driscoll
Jun 04, 2009

There’s just something about a drink with an umbrella. On days like today when I’m stuck in a stagnant office and want nothing more than to be wearing only swim trunks and SPF 125, an umbrella drink has strong appeal. As does the thought of a coconut bikini top. As does a band like Seattle’s Lushy.

Let me explain …

You see, not only does Lushy have a name I can relate to — having once woken up after a night of college binge drinking with the same thing written in Sharpie on my forehead — but the band, as close as musically possible, at least — personifies, ’60s lounge coolness. As a musical entity, Lushy is like a Rat Pack-ready, cocktail toting, cha-cha trotting swinger — ready for whatever comes its way. Be it breezy bossa nova jams or well dressed pop, Lushy is Sean Connery-era Bond, making whatever room they’re in exponentially sexier and swankier.

It rubs off — and, especially thanks to the sexy voice of Annabella Kirby, can’t help but make even the least swanky of us out there (this writer) feel strangely exotic and alluring — which compared to my usual feelings of ineptitude and mediocrity, is an enjoyable diversion.

Saturday, Lushy will bring the swank to The New Frontier. Celebrating ten years as a band, and ever-evolving within a genre they’ve basically created as their own, Lushy, while definitely a bit campy, is also making retro original, one space age lounge jam at a time — a feat that shouldn’t be underestimated.

Or, to cut to the chase, Lushy’s bassist, Matt Nims, calls what the band does “progressive cocktail” — which just might be better than anything I was going to come up with anyway.

“I don’t think there are very many people doing what we do,” says Nims of Lushy’s “futuristic retro” approach, which he says incorporates elements of “Tiki-exotica,” “Euro cabaret café,” and “straight pop rock.”

“We take a Latin lounge groove and build a party song on top of that.”



- Seattle Magazine: Old School New Music; Weekly Vocano: Progressive Coctail