New Albums
THE LUVMENAUTS
Cosmic exotica from Toronto’s soundtrack junkies
In Space DO RIGHT! MUSIC
6/10
This quartet’s day job is scoring Netflix docs, and for their first release on Do Right! – home to the Souljazz Orchestra and other lights of Canada’s soul-funk scene – they’ve set the controls for intergalactic easy listening, where bleeps, squelches and low-slung grooves dominate. Recorded initially to 1/8” tape, In Space’s 12 instrumentals take the popcorn synths of Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley and send them skywards via motorik breakbeats, buzzsaw psych guitar and cavernous reverb. For all the retro references (“’71 Shuttle” is an alternate-universe Rockford Files theme), there’s a stoner-jam vibe, as “Worf Son Of Mogh Suffers A Spatial Anomaly” makes explicit. A bit cheesy, a lot jokey and much funky fun.