Lugubrious 78

It is not clear if this is a good idea. Or even whether it will happen. A considerable amount of irreverent exploration along four main themes:

1. Sketches of Musical Thought: A three-volume series of instrumental tracks, including work-in-progress sketches, instrumental versions of songs with words, and more of the same.
2. Overlays: A two-volume collection. One consists of the two albums released with words in 2025 ('The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety' and 'Repeat. Blindly.') dropped on top of each other. The other takes 'Mishaps from History' and 'Subtle Antimusic' and does basically the same. What happens to the musical interactions and meanings when the context of the music is dramatically altered through abrupt, blatant combinations of that music? Do they become unlistenable? Do they offer something new? Is it just a grift, spamming the music world with empty nothingness? Focus on the real-time noise of multiple thoughts.
3. Drum Automatism: Two albums of drum improvisations recorded over a few months, in which the multitrack recordings have been reorganised following the principles developed for the next theme. Microscale overlays. Are there any other albums solely of drums? Talent and quality as shaped by a highly conforming musical world?
4. Chop. Randomise. Recompile. Discard. (C.R.R.D.): An eight-volume series that takes the roughly 374 minutes of all releases from 2024 and 2025 and applies the core compositional concept of C.R.R.D. What happens? A meditation on algorithmic music? A lazy approach to composition? More spamming? Fragmenting into unfamiliar forms? Aleatory joy in an era of banal form.

To offset these (largely) instrumental offerings, the first of this year's releases consists of the usual psychological-political musings, capturing songs written over the last thirty years. To make everything profoundly unbearable, an accompanying text is being prepared that captures a multitude of meaningless musical musings from the beginnings of Lugubrious 78. An exploration of the evolution of ideas or a culmination of years of pretension heated in the timidity of a fictional recording studio (sorry Tzara!). This may see the light of day. It may not.

The album release schedule is as follows:

Before the release of Subtle Antimusic, we outlined the next steps for forthcoming releases (see Forthcoming Projects!). The projects have been substantially revised. Instead of being the overlay, chop, randomise, and recompile mini-projects, L78 has developed a tool that automates these latter elements of the core Subtle Antimusic compositional concept. The chop, randomise, and recompile process tool has been tested and will be run on all past Lugubrious 78 album releases. Watch this space.

Three releases from the Subtle Antimusic Series are now available:

https://lugubrious78.bandcamp.com/album/mishaps-from-history

https://lugubrious78.bandcamp.com/album/study-in-d

https://lugubrious78.bandcamp.com/album/subtle-antimusic

What is Subtle Antimusic? More details coming soon. 

The following releases are now available on both CD and Vinyl:

Early Explorations Vol. 2a (1999)

The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety

Repeat. Blindly.

The following are available on CD only:

Early Explorations Vol. 2b (1999)

Early Explorations Vol. 2c

All can be found and purchased on the Lugubrious 78 - elasticStage site. For more information on the “Early Explorations Series” visit Lugubrious 78 - About the Music. For the lyrics to “The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety” and "Repeat. Blindly." have a look at Lugubrious 78 - Song Lyrics.

Lugubrious 78 CDs are finally available via Lugubrious 78 - elasticStage after an almost 25 year hiatus. 

Currently, the first available release is Early Explorations Vol. 2b (1999) - elasticStage. More will follow soon and vinyl options are currently being explored. 

L78 Merch can be found at the L78 Store.

A busy few months to round out the year, with the following scheduled releases:

1. 'Repeat. Blindly.' (28th October 2025) provides another exploration of self and world with an alternative rock / experimental leaning.
2. ‘Study in D’ (28th November 2025) takes an electronic and orchestral look at changing time signatures and tempos.
3. ‘Subtle Antimusic’ (31st December 2025) presents a series of reworked and newly recorded instrumentals exploring the meaning behind what constitutes Subtle Antimusic (hint: it isn't anti music at all…)

Lugubrious 78 recently joined Subvert as a Founding Artist. Currently positioned as A Collectively Owned Bandcamp Successor, Subvert is “collectively owned, stewarded, and controlled by its community, with 100% of its founding ownership reserved for its artists, community, and workers. We’re building a platform that has artists’ interests, collective ownership, and democratic governance hardwired in its very DNA.”

No doubt this is a welcome and necessary intervention in an industry that seems stacked against the interests of independent artists.

Continuing the tradition of layering tracks / projects on top of each other and then chopping them up and randomizing them, two projects have just begun:

1. Taking the soon to be released ‘Study in D’ (28th November 2025) and producing Unchopped / Chopped (working title) by combining the tracks ‘Desperate’ and ‘Disparate’, chopping by bars using the original time signatures, and recombining in a new order. 
2. Combining the previously released ‘The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety’ (28th March 2025) and the soon to be released 'Repeat. Blindly.' (28th October 2025) in numerical order, chopping by bars using a set tempo, and recombining in a new order.

No timeframes at the moment - watch this space!