5 Records with La Luz’s Shana Cleveland

“Around the time I got the idea to start La Luz I bought a tape called Sunda Pop from Portland’s great Mississippi Records, a compilation of ‘60s and ‘70s Indonesian pop music. A lot of the songs featured really cool twangy guitar playing and thick vocal harmonies: two of my favorite things! I went down a YouTube wormhole one day looking for more music like what was on the tape and stumbled across this record by Yanti Bersaudara, who would quickly become one of my favorite bands. There are at least a couple moments on our new album that are directly inspired by Yanti (the guitar and vibraphone intro to “I’ll Go With You” for one), but if I’m honest, the very existence of La Luz is deeply inspired by this music.”

“This album is just full of awesome riffs. Awe-inspiring riffs. Not everybody cares about riffs, but I do, I truly do. One of life’s great pleasures is playing a Sabbath song on Guitar Hero in a weird arcade in the middle of the day, slightly stoned. This album is so heavy, partially because it’s so stripped down and minimal. There’s room for every instrument to really cut through and hit hard. I love the way a lot of these songs will start one way and then completely change course, taking you on a gnarly journey. That was a big influence for me with our record, and there are a few songs on News of the Universe that attempt to do that same thing.”

“I’ve always loved the vibe of this record. It’s so dark and sweet and heavy and mega-baroque. A good record to listen to at night with the lights out. A good record for exorcising demons and digging into the darkness, which is something I knew I wanted to do with our songs. I came back to this record after a couple decades when we were preparing to write News of the Universe, inspired by the way it manages to be so dark and fun at the same time.”

“This album, and much of Broadcast’s music, has a timeless feeling that I really like. I’ve seen them referred to as having a ‘60s sound or a retro sound or whatever, but I don’t know, I don’t think they really fit cleanly into any specific era. They sound sort of detached from time, which is a really lovely way to be. I think that’s something I aspire to with La Luz. I love Trish Keenan‘s unaffected vocals. I love the way the songs evoke the past, future, and present simultaneously. Also there’s something a bit Velvet Underground about them which is always a good thing in my book.”

“This is one of my favorite records, and I especially like to listen on headphones because the production is so dense and glorious on songs like “Wah-Wah” and” Let It Down.” The songs are all gorgeous, and I really enjoy how unabashedly spiritual this album is. The songs feel so intimate, like he’s letting us in on his search for the meaning of life – an act of generosity in and of itself. He’s not pretending to have the answers here, I can relate to that. George’s guitar playing is always an inspiration to me, and with our song “Poppies,” I was going for a very George chord progression.”