Vinyl - Lotus - The Strength Of Weak Ties

Lotus's second studio album The Strength of Weak Ties from 2006 will be pressed to vinyl for the first time. The pressing includes the 10 original studio tracks and two bonus live cuts from recent years – concert favorites “Tip of the Tongue” and “Blue Giant”.

The album saw Lotus expand their sonic palette incorporating feedback guitars, acoustic instruments, and a blend of studio, home and field recordings. The music brought in more rock and post-rock influences alongside the electronic and jam mixture the band had established on their first album Nomad.

“After recording Nomad we wanted to dive further into making studio recording a part of our writing process,” explains Jesse Miller. “We set up a ProTools rig at our band house and started making more home recordings. It allowed us to experiment more with different sounds and compositional styles before going into the studio.”

Luke Miller adds, “When we started working on The Strength of Weak Ties I remember wanting to expand the Lotus sound. We pulled in many different instruments – upright piano on “Kesey Seed” with glitchy electronics, African balafon on “Long-Legged Stumble”, vocals from Steve Yutzy-Burky on “Tip of the Tongue”, “Bubonic Tonic”, and “Sprout to Vine”, vibraphone on “When H Binds to O”. We tried to get weirder with the arrangements and push the limits of our compositional forms. The title came from a theory I read about in the book Tipping Point that laid out how networks are formed. We were touring a lot at that point, trying to spread Lotus's music around to all areas of the country - meeting lots of new people and making connections. But I was also thinking about how viruses and pandemics (hence Bubonic Tonic and Contagion - a song we recorded for the album but was ultimately left off) The analogy between positive human networks and the spread of society-threatening pathogens crept into the album.”

Jesse Miller continues, “One idea we played with throughout the album was the juxtaposition of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds. We were doing things like recording sounds played through headphones inside a drawer to degrade the sound, slowing down drum beats, bending pieces of plastic as a percussion instrument and using field recordings to add texture. The experimentation definitely helped form what I think of as the Lotus sound.”

Pre-orders start on 3.18.2024