RFD: Lift To Experience

Just caught word that Josh is releasing a new album on Mute next year.

Boy that's something out of nowhere.

The Josh & Andy reunion show was something kind of wonderful.

Just heard about the upcoming Mute album and didn't even make the connection for a while...going to revisit TxJ in the near future. Damn that was a really solid band that no one talks about. Solo stuff is really promising sounding so far. Has he played the US much/at all?

So this out at the end of the month. I listened to it four times in a row today and fuck is it a monster. Most songs stretching past 10 minutes. It's a "love it or hate it" record, and I'm currently in love it. One part seriously had me tearing up at work (shame).

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/exclusive-josh-t-pearson-listening-party-2234620.html

streaming here

One of my most anticipated 2011 releases for sure. I was bummed because I pre-ordered it, only to find out that the vinyl has a bonus track, and there's already an entire 'bonus cd' floating around with different versions of the songs. I just wasn't made for these times.

Maybe now there'll be a proper reissue of The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads.

Tempted to stream but think I wanna wait till I get the CD so I can listen on proper speakers.

and texas/jerusalem needs a reissue..... why?

OOP

really? couple shops here have new copies last i saw

Yeah, way OOP. Amazon has 'em used for like nineteen bucks. I don't actually even own a copy, and I LURV that album.

wow! gonna look around tomorrow & see if new ones are still hangin' around

last one sold on ebay for $12 and change btw - not bad!

not bad for a buyer, i mean. that's lower priced than a new 2x cd...

I saw Josh T Pearson tonight in Glasgow. Absolutely sublime. He held the rowdy drunken Friday night crowd pin drop quiet and played stuff from his new album with real emotional conviction. These songs are obvioulsy difficult for him to play and he awknowledged that and made lots of jokes, a few about how without the jokes inbetween he wouldn't be able to even play the new material.

Getting up front for the concert meant that by the time I made it to the merch table they had, just before my eyes, sold the last copy of the 'To Hull and Back" live cd-r which I've been desperate to hear for years.

Subsequent web searching leads me to believe that there are a few good quality Josh solo shows to be found. Fustratingly I can't find anything whatsoever myself.

Can anybody help?

Oh yeah, and I missed out entirely on the Rough Trade bonus cd of the new album featuring electric versions. Will I ever get to hear it?

Fandom is a headache.

I share your frustration re: the electric CD. That's what I get for 'pre-ordering' from Amazon. Didn't even know there was a bonus disc at the time.

Only live thing I have is from Nantes, which you can probably find pretty easily on slsk etc. It's pretty good. Clearly an audience recording, pretty raw, but really satisfying.

Good to hear he's still got it. The stuff I've heard from the new album is terrific.

i listened to a few min. of this at a local shop the other day... man, i love the LTE record, but this really left me cold. sounds intensely personal (as i think josh has been saying at interviews/live shows?) but perhaps ends up feeling too distant as a result, kept at arm's length. not sure i'm interested in spending the time necessary to get to know this one :/

4.0 from pitchfork is the first negative review i've seen anywhere. Has been getting huge raves across the board.

Been listening to TJX a lot again. Such a great record, but so odd; the melodies, the spoken-word-ness of the singing, the structures, the whole theme, the giant *kiss* JTP does over in one channel. Ladies and gentlemen we are playing with one guitar.

They're back!

https://twitter.com/lifttoexp/status/707153841066745856

https://www.facebook.com/lifttoexperience/photos/a.994848970560728.1073741827.994827960562829/997048427007449/?type=3&theater

At least for this one show...

Whoa

Really tempted. Saw the Josh/Andy show a few years ago that Josh was saying was the closest they'd ever get to a reunion and it was sublime.

And lo, they have not just re-released, not even just remastered, but gone back and remixed the whole god damn album, and it sounds ASTONISHING.

Nearly threw myself off a bridge listening to it on the way to work this morning. And nearly levitated. And nearly exploded too. What a record.

Also this is feeling remarkably appropriate in its apocalyptic angst right now.

Yeah, I read the Quietus review last week and it colored me intrigued...

It's a great argument for more people to go back and not just remaster but remix old records.

Josh T. Pearson explains, “We went back to the studio, neck deep in the heart of Texas, where Lift recorded The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads – remixing the album the way it should have been mixed originally. It’s good to have our balls back after years spent being castrated.”

Amen, this sounds fabulous.

Just finished disc two on a lunchtime walk around a very blustery campus. What a record. It's like there was a really heavy blanket over the previous version and they've lifted it off and the whole thing is just so much more vivid. It's both more visceral and more psychedelic, louder and more detailed, more dynamic, more fun (in that crazy apocalyptic way). Really, really fabulous.

Really good piece in Mojo courtesy of Stevie. First print magazine I've bought in years.

Does Cozen still post? Would like to know what he thinks of this remaster, as reading his old Freaky Trigger piece the oddness and ethereality of that original mix may have been a big appeal to him. Whereas I've always tried to turn it louder and louder and louder to get more physicality, which is a big part of what the new mix is about.

Also I just want more people to talk about this record, because it's amazing.

Thanks Nick! Buy more MOJO!!

Presumably you got more material from the interview than was printed?

Thanks for your enthusiasm Nick, I've been hooked on this the last couple of days. What a magnificent sounding beast of a record.

MOJO issue not yet available in my town so I don't know how much the info overlaps with last year's Noisey interview but there's Josh's story about the genesis of the album and its mix back in the day (I was actually never aware of the involvement of the Cocteau Twins...) and the motivation behind the rebirth of the band.

Thanks for that!

Le me know if the MOJO doesn't reach you and I'll photograph it.

fyi willem : the article is in the current edition with ray davies on the cover.

Oh, thanks for that! After checking the website for the latest issue I just assumed it'd be in the one with U2 on the cover so I never even checked the one with Ray Davies that was in the shop 8-)

My LP arrived today. Blue and red vinyl. Sounds great so far. I remember going into Glasgow to buy this on CD the day it originally came out.

Missing records it was. I wanted the gatefold vinyl but they only had the CD in. By the time I got internet/ebay account the vinyl was selling for stupid money.
Back then i did daft things with albums I really liked such as buy both CD and LP. LP's were really cheap.

Presumably you got more material from the interview than was printed?

oh hells yeah. i have hours and hours of interviews with josh on my hard drive from the last few years alone.

I'd buy a book! I met him before I'd ever heard LTE or his solo stuff and he's a great talker and a good thinker.

Ha! The story is good enough, though I'm doubting there's enough of an audience there.

If I were ever to make a documentary, though, he'd be a great subject.

http://thequietus.com/articles/23876-josh-t-pearson-new-track-album-listen

Saw Pearson open for Jonathan Wilson last night in Minneapolis and thought he was pretty damn great, and darkly funny. Playing Chicago tonight and Milwaukee tomorrow, before Portland and Seattle. Probably doesn't need to be said that he doesn't get around much (first MPLS show ever). They came out together to do True Love Will Find You in the End for an encore.

I really enjoyed his Straight Hits album, and the band he toured that with last year

Just listened to it, thanks for the recommendation, it's lovely!

"Whiskey Straight Love", "Loved Straight To Hell", and "A Love Song (Set Me Straight)" are straight hits to me - the first a Hank Williams like drinking song with the great line "You're the best thing I ever did wrong with my life", the second an epic stormer that recalls Life to Experience and the latter a gorgeous/shameless anthemic love song that floats before it explodes (his falsetto is spine tingling and the brass coda makes me weak at the knees).

You weren't kidding! This is really great.

And lo, they have not just re-released, not even just remastered, but gone back and remixed the whole god damn album, and it sounds ASTONISHING.

Nearly threw myself off a bridge listening to it on the way to work this morning. And nearly levitated. And nearly exploded too. What a record.

that remix is so amazing, choked up as I heard that train bell a-ringin

OTMFM

An update of sorts from someone on Bluesky:

Lift To Experience was such an awesome band and it's so WEIRD AS HELL that Josh T. Pearson runs a cult commune outside Waco now. Like when we see each other and catch up I don't even bring it up but he keeps asking me to join. Not lyin though it sounds kind of nice

In response to an earnest question of mine:

The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads album is all about it, he moved to Europe for a while and that's where he started the religious cult, then he bought basically a small deserted ghost town outside Waco and runs it all from there now

Did I miss this earlier about the ghost town? (It's probably in one of those pieces linked further back.)

Huh. Super-skeptical about any of that being literally true — Josh has a wicked sense of humor — but I could be wrong!

The writer is a former Transona 5 member who was part of the whole Denton scene and has known Pearson since the 90s, my sense is they're truly telling what they're hearing/seeing! But who knows!

Well, that sounds legit, Ned! I guess I don't see why it couldn't be true. He's a fascinating character with lots of charisma. All of that said, I haven't liked anything he's recorded as a solo artist. The last album is just...ungood. Amazing how much talent he's squandered.