Thursday 8 February 2007
Lotus — Steve Clemens, Jesse Miller, Luke Miller, Chuck Morris and Mike Rempel — formed in 1999. Through non-stop touring, Lotus’ astonishing instrumental tracks quickly garnered a huge and loyal fan base. This lead to Lotus’s 2002 debut album, VIBES, recorded live in concert during the Fall of 2001. The first pressing of VIBES sold out in February of 2003. Follow-up albums released on Harmonized Records — Germination (2003) and Nomad (2004) — cemented Lotus’ close-knit relationship with their fans and provided a tasty appetizer of what was soon to come.
The Strength Of Weak Ties (released April 2006 ) digs deep into musical connections and explores where the familiar meets foreign - glitch-hop programming meets rock ‘n’ roll drums, overdriven guitars meet overdriven synthesizers, primitive drum machines meet funky back beats, and post-rock meets electronica.
“Musically, we wanted this album to contrast raw and dirty sounds like guitar feedback, roomy sounding drums, with obviously electronic sounds like drum machines, and analog synths,” says Luke Miller. “We worked to give it a loose yet tight feel; have the details of a headphone trip, but still rock out.”
“Lotus has always tip-toed the tight rope that is drawing on multiple genres — slip one way and it’s a haphazard melting pot; fall to the other and you’ve got a diluted derivative; but hang on and you can find something new,” Luke adds. “I think Strength of Weak Ties digs deeper into musical connections than ever before. The result is simultaneously more introspective and more of an unbridled rock out.”
Lotus’ The Strength of Weak Ties Tour 2006 includes most major markets in the US including NYC, Boston, Burlington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Cincinnati among others. (Part II of the tour starts in Sept 06 in California and extends to Canada and the Rocky Mt States)
This summer, Lotus will hit the festival circuit and perform at some of best festivals in the country —High Sierra Music Festival, Wakarusa Festival, SmileFest, WXPN Fest in Philadelphia, as well as the Green Room Festival in Yokohoma, Japan.