News

Pagan Wanderer Lu Announces 'Digital Boxed Set'

• 12th Jan 2011

Veteran cult songwriter and lo-fi anti-hero Pagan Wanderer Lu has announced plans to reissue the two albums and nine EP’s he self-released before signing to Brainlove Records in 2006. To mark ten years of writing, recording and gigging he will make the releases available as a ‘digital boxed set’ via Bandcamp.

Starting with 2005’s album ‘Build Library Here (or else!)’ this month he will work backwards with one reissue per month, ending with the humble cassette EP ‘Train Songs’ which was made in a run of 30 copies in 2001.

After a successful 2010 in which he released the critically acclaimed ‘European Monsoon’, toured up and down the UK and appeared at the Iceland Airwaves festival PWL is also writing and recording a new album to be released later this year.

This is what PWL has to say on the reissue series, and the next set ofPWL recordings.

So what’s the deal with these reissues?

In December 2010 it was ten years since the first PWL gig. Inevitably that prompted a bit of a backwards look. I recorded and released music all the time I was at university and ever since. Always self-recorded and home made. At the time I remember thinking that everything I put out would end up as a ‘boxed set’ someday that all my swooning fans would want to buy once I was a lo-fi superstar. Physical releases are so last decade, so downloads is the way forward.

What can people expect to hear?

There’s been a fairly natural progression over the past ten years from a guy with an acoustic guitar and a cassette 4-track to whatever you call what I do now. Gradual introductions of synths and beats as I got more able to record them. I’ve decided to reissue them in reverse order – mostly because the more recent stuff is better – so people will see this ‘journey’ in reverse. I think there’s a consistent approach to the lyrics from fairly early on. Even the very first cassette has one or two tracks that I think are discernibly by the same person who wrote ‘European Monsoon’ last year.

Anything embarrassing in there?

Definitely. One thing the tapes aren’t is well recorded. There’s wonky timing/tuning, boomy mastering, an occasional faux American accent for no discernible reason. As you go really far back there are more songs about girls. I will cringe slightly when the first two EP’s go up. But the idea is to just make it all available ‘warts and all’. I’ll be doing a blog about each release as well to put it in context.

I’m pretty confident that anyone who likes the ‘Brainlove version’ of PWL will see past the roughness and enjoy these songs. The first reissue is going to be my second album ‘Build Library Here (or else!)’ which I actually think is just as good as ‘European Monsoon’ in terms of the songwriting. John Brainlove once described it as ‘the record Blur should have made after Parklife’.

You’ve announced a ‘break’. What does this mean? Is this the end of PWL? Have you split up with yourself?

Not at all. I’m basically just taking a break from gigging and stuff. The only reason I ‘announced’ it was so I’d stick to it. I find it hard to say no to gigs.

By the time ‘Fight My Battles’ came out in 2009 I’d almost finished ‘European Monsoon’. But that hasn’t been the case this time. 2010 was really busy and great in lots of ways but I didn’t get as much writing done. I reckon in six months time I’ll have another album that I’ll be excited to get out. I’ve already got a lot of songs I’m really pleased with, but having a break and doing some other stuff for a while will help make that a better record.

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