It’s hard to believe that it has been four years since The Lucksmiths said their goodbyes — harder still that it’s twenty since they introduced themselves in the first place. To mark the occasion, Matinée is teaming up with our good pals at the Lost And Lonesome Recording Company in Australia to announce the first-ever release on glorious 12-inch vinyl of the band’s career-defining album ‘Warmer Corners’ (matcd039).
Originally released in 2005, ‘Warmer Corners’ was the third album The Lucksmiths made with producer Craig Pilkington, and their first as a four-piece. The addition of second guitarist Louis Richter had a profound impact, reinvigorating the band and filling out their trademark stripped-back sound. This was obvious from first single ‘The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco’—an instant classic underpinned by Richter’s memorable guitar work, the song represented an exciting step forward for the band.
At once The Lucksmiths’ most ambitious and most accessible record, ‘Warmer Corners’ was met with widespread critical acclaim. Delusions of Adequacy called it “an album that somehow transcends its simplicity and becomes something of remarkable beauty,” while Pitchfork praised it as “idiosyncratic but accessible, literate but unpretentious, gentle but not weak, sincere not so much in presentation … as in presence.” Erasing Clouds was moved to suggest “The Lucksmiths have a unique mastery of the art of writing a song. Their grasp on melody, on hooks, on details, on making a song feel sad and beautiful and optimistic at the same time, is unmatched.”
Eight years later, it remains easy to see why. Many of the band’s finest moments are here, from the string-and-horn-laden opener ‘A Hiccup in Your Happiness’ to the winning guitar jangle of ‘Sunlight in a Jar’ and ‘Young and Dumb,’ from the off-kilter urgency of ‘The Music Next Door’ to gentler moments like ‘Great Lengths’ and the pedal-steel-soaked ‘If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now,’ all the way through to remarkable closer ‘Fiction,’ The Lucksmiths never sounded so good.
The album is currently on a jet from Australia and we are accepting preorders for it now with an expected release date of November 26th. It’s a hand numbered beauty in a limited edition of 500 worldwide and it comes with a free download code, natch. We also have ‘Warmer Corners’ postcards and some vintage Lucksmiths posters (circa 2005, complete with full US tour dates!) that we’ll throw in with orders until they are gone.
Please note: postage for 12” records is not cheap and completely out of our control. If you are in the US, media mail is affordable but fairly slow. Priority mail is fast and not terrible if you are in California but can be expensive to the East Coast. Adding multiple items to an order is a good way to spread out the postage cost. If you are after more vinyl, we have a smashing new LP out next week from Math and Physics Club if you want to add one of those … or perhaps the stunning ‘Pretty Decent Swimmers’ 10” from Northern Portrait … or one of the many ace 7” singles or CDs we’ve released recently. We are working with Lost and Lonesome to get copies of the LP in the hands of select European merchants too to make sure you can get an affordable copy of this gem one way or another.
Surely most of you have heard this classic album already, but here’s a Soundcloud sampler just in case…