Light Pollution shares two new MP3s, does Laundromatinee session for MOKB, tours with Casiokids

MP3: “Magic Kingdoms Kick My Teeth In” (non-album track)

Midwesterners often feel obligated to apologize for/complain about their landscape. Chicago’s Light Pollution does not. The contrasting feelings of wonderment and isolation evoked by the frozen Midwestern plains deeply pervade their sound.

23-year-old songwriter James Cicero grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, the son of Italian and Spanish Catholics. His grandfather was a poor trumpet player, and his father a strict military man. As a result, when Cicero bought his first guitar at the age of seventeen, his father took to locking it in the attic. Cicero left for college in Dekalb, IL, met drummer Matt Evert, obsessively wrote songs in class, and soon dropped out. Over the following years, the two honed their skills and sensibilities, eventually acquiring Nick Sherman and Jed Robertson; evolving into what is now Light Pollution.

Cicero wrote the album over the course of a long, stoned, agoraphobic winter spent isolated in a heatless warehouse west of Chicago. In a piss-poor living environment, filled with anxiety, he removed himself from the outside world and sought spirituality in seclusion. Lyrical themes developed within the warehouse walls. Various apparitions were translated into long ambient tape and synth drones. Dreams of the Virgin Mary resulted in late night sessions on an old church organ.

These strange happenings resulted in Light Pollution’s devestatingly beautiful and spiritually heavy debut album, Apparitions. Swirling analog synths, shimmering arpeggios, and washed out tape noise are embedded into combinations of 90’s shoegaze, chill-wave and vocal psych-pop. Thanks to a unique blend of hi-fi and lo-fi tracking and their Midwestern demeanor, they are able to create hazy, psychedelic, layered sounds that set them apart from recent waves of lo-fi pop bands.

Light Pollution released Apparitions on 6/15 via Carpark Records. The band has been on tour recently with Memoryhouse, Phantogram, Cults, and A Place To Bury Strangers, as well as random dates with Deerhunter, Best Coast, and Delorean. Tonight they kick off the next leg of their tour with Fol Chen and Crocodiles at The Echo in LA before meeting up with Casiokids for a run of dates starting in SF.

The LA show on 8/17 is being celebrated with a free compilation featuring exclusive songs from all the bands performing, including “Magic Kingdoms Kick My Teeth In” from Light Pollution, and can be downloaded in full here – http://heartmusicgroup.bandcamp.com/

LIGHT POLLUTION

08/16 – Los Angeles, CA – Echo $
08/17 – Los Angeles, CA – Thesex (816 S. Santa Fe Ave) !
08/18 – San Francisco, CA – Cafe Du Nord +
08/19 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios +
08/20 – Seattle, WA – Vera Project +
08/21 – Vancouver, BC – Media Club +
08/24 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry +
08/25 – Chicago, IL – Schuba’s +
08/26 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick +
08/27 – Toronto, ON – Supermarket +
08/28 – Brookyln, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg < 08/29 - Philadelphia, PA - Kung Fu Neck Tie + 08/30 - Washington, DC - DC9 08/31 - Brooklyn, NY - The Rock Shop 09/23 - Cincinnati, OH - Midpoint Music Festival 09/24 - Champaign, IL - Pygmailon Music Festival $ = w/ Fol Chen & Crocodiles ! = w/ Baths, Teen Daze, Blackbird Blackbird, Gobble Gobble and Kites Sail High + = w/ Casiokids < = w/ Autolux & This Will Destroy You
Light Pollution
Apparitions
(Carpark)
Street Date: June 8, 2010

1. Good Feelings
2. Oh, Ivory!
3. Drunk Kids
4. Fever Dreams
5. Deyci, Right On
6. Bad Vibes
7. All Night Outside
8. Witchcraft
9. Ssslowdreamsss

LIGHT POLLUTION LINKS:

MySpace: myspace.com/lightpollution

Press Materials: carparkrecords.com/pollutionpresspage