{"title":"Guiding Lights","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"guiding-lights-new-ways-to-feel-bad-cd","title":"Guiding Lights - New Ways to Feel Bad CD","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"New Ways to Feel Bad\" is a debut album from Warsaw garage\/folk\/punk rockers Guiding Lights. CD contains 13 tracks reminiscent of Pixies, Husker Du or Guided by Voices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGuiding Lights came into existence in November 2015. \"We should say that our beginnings are nothing like other bands\", admits Łukasz (guitar, voice), Asia (bass, voice) and Piotrek (drums). \"We started working on almost completed songs and the ones you may hear during our concerts are already the product of our group work. You also need to take into account that one thing remains constant: we always wanted to play good and fast songs. We appreciate bands that may not become famous but at least had great songs that made them respected.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGuiding Lights describe their music as \"primate punk\" and apes seem to play a significant role in bands own mythology. \"Apes are somewhat of a private obsession for Łukasz who learned to read from 'Tytus' comic books. You need to know that if we had not reacted early enough, the band would be called Other Apes. Funny stories aside, we would like to draw some attention to a dying breed of Orangutans and lab-imprisoned chimpanzees from New York Blood Center, abandoned on an island near Liberia's coast (one of them is pictured on our album cover). 'Primate punk' and 'chimpanzee violence' are just jokes on genre labels. If you need to attach one to Guiding Lights, we would suggest 'normcore' and 'garage folk'. Deprived of distortions we sound much alike 90's anti-folk bands and it seems that each and every song we perform is an excercise in rewriting 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs mentioned before, most songs and melodies had been composed before the band even took form but it was during the rehearsals that Asia's and Piotrek's input made them sound the way it was originally intended: loud and fast. \"We rehearsed frequently and after only four months we were ready to enter the studio. We wanted this album to sound raw but in an intended way, not because of our shortcomings\", says Łukasz.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Instant Classic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56922834665854,"sku":"CLASSIC057CD","price":9.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0962\/4161\/5230\/files\/GUIDING_LIGHTS_NEW_WAYS.jpg?v=1771535968"},{"product_id":"guiding-lights-not-much-war-cd","title":"Guiding Lights - Not Much War CD","description":"\u003cp\u003eNovember 30th marks the release date of a second full length album from Warsaw-based punky garage trio Guiding Lights. Entitled \"Not Much War\", the record consists of 12 songs about life and death and 1 about apes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I think the main difference between our debut album and the new one comes down to the fact that we're now more tight players as a band,\" says Łukasz Ciszak (vocals, guitar). \"Our first songs were written with a thought that Guiding Lights could become a solo project instead of a real group while the new ones are a product of our band rehearsals. What took us by surprise is the tempo that in slowest parts does not come down under 180bpm and most often stays around 190bpm. We also decided to track more guitar parts and leave some space for Asia's vocals. There's even a synth hidden somewhere under the layers of fuzz,\" he adds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to notice that Guiding Lights' lyrics deal with negative aspects of life. \"We still focus on midlife crisis and even though we managed to work out some part of it on our debut album, it turns out that thanks to our new adventures there's plenty to write about,\" explains Asia Świderska (vocals,bass). \"There are some lyrics inspired by books from Philip Roth and Hubert Selby Jr. and one is written from the perspective of chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky, a victim of a failed experiment.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd while they clearly know that it's no longer 1991 and Warsaw's pretty far away from New York, Guiding Lights still have a lot to say in the field of melodic garage punk.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Instant Classic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56922843513214,"sku":"CLASSIC075CD","price":9.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0962\/4161\/5230\/files\/guiding_lights_profile.jpg?v=1771533048"},{"product_id":"guiding-lights-the-document-mc","title":"Guiding Lights - The Document MC","description":"\u003cp\u003eFourth album from garage\/math rock trio Guiding Lights. “The Document” contains 9 instrumental tracks reminiscent of Don Caballero, Slint and June of 44. It’s at the same time minimal, direct and tense.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis Warsaw-based trio started as a vehicle for fast-paced melodic indie songs but with time adopted a more complex approach to songwriting including complicated rhythmic patterns and getting rid of vocal parts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It’s no secret that our debut album consists of songs written way before we formed this band,” Łukasz (guitar) explains. „Second one also came out thanks to adopting a songwriting mode. Then we were forced to change our approach due to our drummer’s move to Germany. What served as the basis then was a drum machine beat with bass and guitar jamming around it. And that’s what I think contributed to a somehow neurotic vibe of ‘Cold Reading’. We couldn’t follow this path any longer since it would lead to musical variations on Naked City’s ‘Speed Freaks’,” he adds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“At the time I was leaving Warsaw all of us felt that our idea for this band was running out. We thought about reseting everything along with changing the name of our band but I’m glad we’ve not taken things that far,” says Piotrek (drums). „I find it exciting to do whatever you feel like doing without looking at what other people think about it. Especially now that most musicians focus too much on shaping their online image. Guiding Lights are happy to stay away from such actions and this is how I define artistic independence,” he adds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The Document” is an instrumental album but the number of musical tropes audible in each track is simply astonishing. And it goes along a really direct and dry production. “I guess singing doesn’t usually fall in place with such sounds. From the listener perspective lack of vocals allows for more focus on details of band’s performance. The less, the better,” Piotrek explains.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Instant Classic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56922861404542,"sku":"CLASSIC094MC","price":9.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0962\/4161\/5230\/files\/Guiding_Lights_The_Document_MC.jpg?v=1772451871"}],"url":"https:\/\/8merch.shop\/collections\/guiding-lights.oembed","provider":"8Merch Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}