Light Asylum - S/T

Light Asylum’s Shannon Funchess has one of the most memorable voices around. It’s not virtuosic in a conventional sense, but she’s a powerful, affecting singer with an unusual timbre. Along with her musical partner Bruno Coviello, Funchess makes music that combines minimal synth, EBM, and other elements, and the end result is hard-hitting.

Light Asylum's debut LP came out in 2012, a time before streaming really gained critical mass and before vinyl came back in a big way. It was a weird in-between era, like both the recent past and ancient history.

History has been kind to Light Asylum. For one, whatever limited vinyl copies were pressed in the initial run fetch stupid prices on Discogs. And the critical shrug that welcomed its release now seems irrelevant. This is top-notch, black-clad, spiritually punishing synth-pop, perfectly and carefully programmed and soaring on the back of lead singer Shannon Funchess' superhuman voice.

Side A, with rampages like "IPC," is heavier and faster than Side B, which opens with a slow, serene, goosebump-inducing track titled "Angel Tongue" and finished with the near ecstatic "A Certain Person."

The DFA braintrust always maintained a deep love for this record, and we wanted vinyl copies of it for ourselves that didn't cost so much money. So, we asked if we could reissue it, get Bob Weston to recut it, and press it at a really nice plant like Citizen Vinyl. That's this version right here.