Levitation Room: Ethos 2016 + Headspace 2019

 

East Los Angeles quartet Levitation Room’s floaty, cosmic songs are always a trip. Since forming

nearly a decade ago, they’ve self-produced dizzying, otherworldly music that’s connected with fellow travelers in the hallucinogenic world of outré rock music. Led by singer and guitarist Julian Porte along with founding members Gabriel Fernandez (lead guitar) and Johnathan Martin (percussion), the band has enchanted live audiences at Desert Daze and on tour with like-minded groups Post Animal and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.
                      

The band’s vivid sound has found them placed on popular playlists like Modern Psychedelia and the

legendary superproducer’s Danger Mouse Jukebox. Their 2015 debut, “Friends,” has surpassed 18 million streams. Joined by new member Kevin Perez (bass) in 2021, Levitation Room have continued to expand their colorful, unearthly sound, a process that has culminated with the vibrant new album Strange Weather.
                      

Collaborating with former Brian Jonestown Massacre keyboardist Rob Campanella, Jason Kick (Mild

High Club), and Black Crowes’ Joel Robinow, Levitation Room take a new step in their story and vision with Strange Weather. The record’s lyrical narratives—about love in the park, life in the city, and the fact that “The world today is such an illusion”—are appropriately steeped in ’60s sonics and a dreamy, lo-fi atmosphere. It’s spacey, celestial guitar music for escaping into, and “it feels just like heaven.”
                    

   
If you ask Levitation Room if they believe in extraterrestrial life, their answer will most definitely be a

yes. In fact, the band have even had an alien encounter themselves. Lead singer Julian Porte recalled said encounter with aliens during a past tour, saying, "We saw UFOs in Arizona. 

           

Like straight up. We were coming from San Diego and we were gonna play a show in Phoenix. We

were passing through this really flat terrain, really desolate land, you know. It was getting late because we were having van trouble, and we were late to our gig. So we’re hauling ass through the desert, and then our drummer’s girlfriend was like 'Hey what’s that light in the sky?' And we looked over to our right, and there were these orbs of light just suspended in the sky.
                    

A few of them would appear and they would just kind of hoover and do these formations or whatever

and then disappear. Then we were kind of freaking out about it, but they disappeared and then all of the sudden this huge mothership started blinking all the way around." While Julian says they were all screaming and hysterical after witnessing a mysterious sphere light up like that, he also said some of the locals made them doubt their story a little bit. "We can’t say for sure," he says.  
                    

"Afterwards we stopped in this gas station and there were some locals standing there. I was like 'Hey

guys do you know what those lights were?' They were like 'Those lights? Those were just flares!' Flares don’t do that shit man…" This supposed alien sighting happened a little over two years ago when the band were on their way to SXSW Festival for the first time, and the band members all remain confident that something strange went down, regardless of what the locals said.
                   

LEVITATION ROOM - ETHOS 2016

            

The Southern California psychedelic garage rockers Levitation Room take inspiration from all the

obvious '60s sources on their debut album, Ethos. One can hear traces of every band that ever showed up on a Nuggets comp, as well as all the weird groups who probably never even saw a tab of acid but were happy to pretend. The swirling and exotic guitar lines, whirling organs and Mellotrons, sneery, bleary vocals, and reverb-baked sound all scream 1966 -- but also 1986. The group sound almost exactly like every band from the mid-'80s wave of revivalists who ended up on Voxx or Midnight

Records. Think Miracle Workers thanks to the biting guitar leads provided by Gabriel Fernandez, the Tell-Tale Hearts thanks to the relaxed, bluesy bounce, and the Chesterfield Kings due to Julian Porte's note-perfect vocal snarl and the band's exacting level of detail. Once their lineage has been established and cataloged, it's time to actually delve into what they bring to the party. Ethos isn't just an empty trip back to the past, it's full of really good songs played with fire and a drowsy power.
                

Levitation Room – Ethos
Label: Burger Records – BRGR885
Format: CD, Album
Country: US
Released: Apr 2016
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock

TRACKS

               

01. Strangers Of Our Time    2:20
02. Cosmic Flower    1:54
03. Loved    3:35
04. Lazy Lawrence    3:41
05. Reasons Why    2:51
06. Standing In The Rain    2:35
07. Plain To See    4:05
08. There Are No Words    2:27
09. Last Breath    2:48
10. Crystal Ball    3:09

BONUS TRACK (From The EP: Minds Of Our Own 2015)

11. Visions Of My Mind   2:48

LINE - UP

                           

Bass, Vocals – Jonathan Martin Thiemens
Drums – Jonathan Martin
Lead Guitar, Vocals – Gabriel Fernandez
Lead Vocals, Guitar – Julian Porte
Keyboards, Vocals, Producer, Engineer – Glenn Brigman

MP3 @ 320 Size: 80.2 MB
Flac  Size: 213 MB

LEVITATION ROOM - HEADSPACE 2019

                   

After debuting with Ethos, an album that sounded like it could have been released in 1966 to minor

acclaim, Levitation Room return with a record that maintains their note-perfect, backward-looking sound but adds some new wrinkles. This time around, they aren't stuck in one particular year or style and this looseness gives them room to explore.  These journeys lead to winning results. There are several tracks that capture the strutting swagger of Ethos and deliver similarly fuzzy garage feelings. "2025" lets guitarist Gabe Fernandez take off in flights of fuzztone frenzy while singer Julian Porte sneers mightily, "Forever Tomorrow" matches snarling psych with almost fragile folk-rock, and "Mr.

Polydactyl Cat" gets happily, trippily weird around the edges. There are also some new sounds that flow naturally from what the band were doing before, like the rumbling San Francisco groove of "What You See" or the jazz-psych wanderings of "Headspace," where Fernandez rips fierce solos over pianist Glen Brigman's blocky chords and tinkling runs. It's like they jumped forward a couple of years on these tracks and that makes sense.
                   

Levitation Room – Headspace
Label: Greenway Records – GWY-061
Format: CD
Country: US
Released: Oct 4, 2019
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock

TRACKS

               

01. Mr. Polydactyl Cat
02. What You See
03. Dream (Within A Dream)
04. Ooh Child
05. 2025
06. Pass It On
07. Headspace
08. Stars Speak Softly
09. Here Comes The Man
10. Friends
11. Forever Tomorrow

LINE - UP

                   

Bass – C. Mercado
Drums, Percussion, Typography [Levitation Room & Headspace] – J. Martin
Electric & acoustic piano – Rob Campanella
Lead Guitar – G. Fernandez
Lead Vocals, Guitar – J. Porte
Organ [Farfisa, Wurlitzer], Piano, Tabla – G. Brigman
    

MP3 @ 320 Size: 97.1 MB
Flac  Size: 246 MB