In the artist’s own words, “Luna Fade is a Dream Pop entity from Clearwater, Florida, [an] artistic odyssey into the world of post-apocalyptic dream pop.” In other words, Luma Fade is an ambitious project, one whose scope aims to do something different. As soon as I came across this album’s bandcamp page, I was staggered by the thought gone into crafting it’s world. The ‘Liner notes’ read like a number of diary entries, detailing the days over a number of months. I won’t spoil the story, but let’s just say that the narrator has a rather unusual happening to report.
Musically, Visitor falls somewhere between dream-pop and atl-rock, think somewhere between Slowdive and Beabadoobee. Track two, ‘Quantum Sleep’ is especially pretty, leaning heavily into dreamscapes of other galaxies. ‘Speed of light’ is perhaps the strongest on the record, with lyrics detailing (again, I won’t spoil the story!) the beginning of a journey. With clear vocals and a slightly off-kilter pop sound, you are immediately reminded of artists like Samia and Japanese Breakfast.
What is most notable about Visitor is it’s poetic approach to lyric. It would be easy to take the record’s narrative as face value, being nothing but what is written. However, there is real vulnerability here; with lyrics like, “Seven days since you’ve been gone / I see a light blinking on your machine, / labelled rest/recover / but I don’t have the courage, / to push that button”, suggesting other meanings.
Despite the suggestion that the album may have darker themes than what is told, Visitor is a deeply fun album, especially when listened to front-to-back. The story is compelling, the music is dreamy; overall, Luma Fade’s latest album is a triumph of sound put to narrative.
Written by Callum Foulds