Hysterical Love Project - Lashes

The zeitgeist-channeling, word-of-mouth breakout of 2023 from Melbourne duo Hysterical Love Project finally makes its way to vinyl courtesy of Motion Ward. Like fellow Aussie Tornado Wallace's a.s.o. project, the pair unite the two big 90s touchstones of shoezgaze/dreampop and trip hop with the 'sensual' dial cranked right to 11. Downtemp beats, gauzy electronics, and breathy vocals tick all the right boxes, but you can still do that and get this kind of thing very wrong (hi there, Cigarettes After Sex). HLP pitch it just so, mustering an appropriate balance of late night pillowtalking and lost-in-the-dry-ice third room fog that shows they've spent a fair amount of time listening to the best records by HTRK and Bowery Electric. This might sound nostalgic to some, but the 'Ambient Revival' of five plus years was always suggesting we were heading towards a kind of drugged-out, escapist ambi-pop that's just as hazy and indistinct as the weird world we're living in (see also: ML Buch and Astrid Sonne). It's not for nothing that The Kids love this stuff (cos they're probably not alright).