Luxxury's "Drunk EP" CD in stock again!

Digital? Shmidgeital. Sometimes you just want to feel the music in your hot little hands. For you, we now offer as a limited edition the 3rd pressing of our debut EP on Omega Point Records/Nolita. The cover was photographed by Berlin-based photographer Hadley Hudson (Peaches, Chicks on Speed) and designed by Jason Koxvold. Jason also directed our video for Disco Noir, which you should watch because it is awesome.



Buy it now, or click on a song to listen to lo-fi previews:
1. Drunk (7" edit)
2. All The Way (boy vs. girl mix)
3. Disco Noir (clean mix)
4. Understood (dirty mix)


Still here? Haven't busted out the ole' AmEx yet? Here are just of a few of the glowing reviews the album has received to get you off your keister and into commerce mode:

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Luxxury: The Drunk EP
Score: Four and a half Stars

There is a lot of hype surrounding New York's Scissor Sisters at the moment. Well deserved for sure, but they're not the only ones out there with the music that matches the attitude. Luxxury are another example of substance matching the style.

Luxxury was formed by New Yorker Buck Washington (Vocals/Guitar) when he moved to San Francisco, recruiting Anu K (synth), Reid M (beats), Stephanie M (Vocals) and Devin O (bass). Luxxury profess to sound electro-new-wave with dirty synths, crunchy guitars and Moroder beats. It's a pretty good description and the band come close to fulfilling the promise made by that.

Whereas Scissor Sisters take their inspiration from the disco/glam-rock era, Luxxury scoot forward a few years into the new-wave era and take inspiration from Numan and a host of new wave synth and guitar bands. It's hard to do a direct comparison to anyone in particular, and that can only be a plus.

The first two songs are essentially synth-driven, albeit with strong bass lines and subtle guitar work. Buck W takes care of all the vocal duties on these songs, using a very understated style, almost talking to his audience rather than singing.

Track 3, All The Way, is where the guitar starts to come centre-stage with a vocal duet between Buck W and Stephanie M. The last track, Understood, is really a synthesis of fuzzy guitar and heavy bass, with Buck making good use of a vocoder for his vocals.

Only recently I was bemoaning the lack of strong basslines in modern synthpop. Whilst this may not strictly fall into that particular genre (although it does straddle it) the bass lines are strong and imaginative, reminding me a little of New Order's Peter Hook at times.

The EP as a whole is well put together, a lot of time and care has obviously been taken with this. It's well-produced and there is a good mix of songs. It sounds good and sounds even better played loud. For me this is one of the finds of the year, no exaggeration. If you can handle new wave music, and like your synth with guitar, then don't hesitate to pick this up.

- SYNTHPOP.NET

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Here we have something very much like driving a Nine Inch Nail through a vulva – an enormous musical cock that threatens to collapse any orifice it enters. Luxxury agitates the kidneys, and stirs the senses in a less holy hole. This is not an album to take its time evoking sights and smells – no, all we have here is the touch, and if it can be felt inside, all the better. Sensualist and sly, Luxxury works like a skillful painter in hiding its clean, utilitarian outlines under layers of dirty, decadent detail. It is with an oddly thin sound that Luxxury tickles and provokes us - pressing the buttons of even the most suppressed libido. Luxxury will invite you to kiss with a beat box found in a secondhand store, though they’ll never say ‘I love you’ in 300 years.

- A DECOUVRIR ABSOLUMENT (corrections to our imperfect French translation welcome)

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From Omega Point I usually expect weird trashy electronic music. And that's exactly what Luxxury from San Francisco brings. And they do it good! On this EP, released under license of Nolita, you can find four tracks of raw electro-pop kitsch with rock elements and sensual themes. Especially the title track 'Drunk' is highly entertaining, an energetic electro dancefloor anthem with deep basses.

'All the way' (Boy vs. Girl mix) is slower, but it's a nice piece of 80's nostalgia, combining postpunk guitars with synthwave and rather cheesy vocals in the refrain. 'Disco Noir' brings us back to the strobes and glitters with more trashy electro sounds, a nice Ladytron-like piece. The dirty mix of 'Understood' introduces heavier crossover guitar elements, say Lords of Acid meets Revolting Cocks.

An infectious EP with a high fun factor and the best release on Omega Point Records I heard so far. Promises a lot for Luxxury's debut album "Sex With Rich People" which is coming next.

- FUNPROX

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Lots of bands have taken a crack at late-eighties Eurotrash synthpop, but few have pulled it off as convincingly as Luxxury do on The Drunk EP. The title cut really nails the formula; it's basically a debauched, hedonistic piece about following a woman around the world, from city to city, nightclub to nightclub. "The night is alive / and the girl is so young / She's wearing Chanel / and I'm so under her thumb," vocalist Buck W. drawls as beats thump and an ominous synth throbs luridly behind him. Just in case you don't get the whole unconstructed suits/sunglasses at night/surplus of hair gel vibe, Buck treats us to a bit of name dropping: "Well I can meet you at the Man Ray / just off the Champs d'Elysses / I'll go anywhere that you say." It's pure, decadent goodness.

The remaining three songs can't match "Drunk" for sheer jet-setting, runny-nosed seediness, but they're far from disappointing. "All the Way (Boy vs. Girl mix)", which also features the vocal talents of Steph M. (she's credited with "Kittenish purrs" on the group's web site), aims for Human League but lands closer to Animotion. It's bouncy and danceable, but only in short bursts -- rhythm and tempo are all over the map. "Disco Noir (Clean Mix)" delivers the down and dirty goods -- sinuous bass line, keyboard laser beams, gloomy melody and faux-handclap percussion. There's humor, too. "It's so hard to tell / if she's being ironic / she dances with boys / but her hair is so lesbionic," Buck sings, shortly before lapsing into French, German, or a mix of the two. And later, as if these guys are literally working from a checklist of essential elements, there's a vocoder sequence.

"Understood (Dirty Mix)" alters the formula by adding distorted electric guitars and megaphone-scratchy vocals to the bass/synth/drum machine equation. If you were old enough to buy records in the late eighties, and your tastes ran to obscure goth offshoots, you might liken it to James Ray and the Performance. Like "All the Way", it could have been the highlight on a "Drunk"-less EP.

Some bands merely flirt with synth-pop, blithely flogging the latest in a long line of meal-ticket trends. Others live it. Luxxury stay at it 24/7, red-eyed and wired. They put the "tic" in authentic.

- SPLENDID

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Here is a re-release of the first Luxxury's EP issued in 2004 awaiting first album "Sex With Rich People". Luxxury's music is realy electro-rock and the texte are very "glamour", like their look in the 70's spirit. Their univers is around sexe, money, french chic life style (le chic à la française) and mode, Glams in fact. Disco Noir is the most representative of this attitude, and also the most electro. Production's quality is irreproachable, sound is a little dirty. This EP is very rock but not stripped of humour. The better way to have an idea is to listen those tracks by click on their name in the tracks listing. The only reproach I can say : it's to short, I'm feeling me frustrated ! Highly the release of the album.

Longue vie à Luxxury !

- YET ANOTHER ELECTRO WEBZINE (translation left to le machine, because our staff translator was feeling lazy that day)

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I was surprised to read that Luxxury hail from San Francisco; their sleazy, slinky brand of techno-rock is something I would have thought inherently European, specifically something you'd hear in a dingy electro-dance club in Berlin or suchlike. But with a singer called Buck Washington, how could they be anything but American? That told me.

The Drunk EP, the quintet's four-track debut, combines the filthiest beats with the most salacious vocals singing the smuttiest lyrics. It's a dark, heavy, sweaty electro-pop workout, combining camp with kitsch to wondrous effect. Drunk is a seedy synth-and-bass driven track with lyrics about how 'The night is alive/The girl is so young/She's wearing Chanel/I'm so under her thumb', while All The Way is a uptempo guitar-driven duet with co-singer Steph M. Disco Noir reverts to the scuzzy disco feel, before winding up with Understood, a funky number with a neat, clever bassline over breathy vocals.

With The Killers, Scissor Sisters and Roxy Music as reference points, Luxxury should slot snugly into the niche they've carved for themselves, in a scene that's rapidly becoming full of music you can actually dance to. About time, too.

- SOUNDS XP

*******

This is a dirty, lurid CD that reeks of the sweat and smoke of a hipster club somewhere in New York or Berlin. Dave Gahan once sang of a "Dirty Sticky Floor" and after listening to this EP it's hard to imagine another band that encompasses that sound better.

Hailing from San Francisco, Luxxury are the epitome of a VIP club: they're stylish, smoky, chic, sexy, and gone by morning.

Riding the psuedo-New Romantic electro-rock wave (The Killers, Franz Ferdinand,etc.) they break their cherry with the first track "Drunk (7" edit)" as they seductively croon that "...the night is alive / and the girl is so young / she's wearing Chanel / and I'm so under her thumb." You know it's filthy and wrong, which just makes it so much better. It's a slightly cold electronic dance track that gives on the impression tha t you're trapped in a German Disco. The constant namedropping of European locations adds to the hipster sleaze of the song.

From there the CD moves to the more overt "All The Way (Boy vs. Girl Mix)," as if the first track was too subtle in its sexuality. "I've got no use for all your talk / 'bout what tomorrow brings / baby, you should try and use that tongue / for more important things / Let's get together / here or wherever / nothing's going to keep my hands of you..." clearly indicate what the singer is after as he goes back in forth with an unidentified female, a New Order-esque bassline joining them.

"Disco Noir (Clean Mix)" begins with a line that describes not only the song, but the band's sound "...with dirty beats and guitars." Here Luxxury shows their wit as they note that "...it's so hard to tell / if she's being ironic / she dances with boys / but her hair's so les-bi-onic..." as classic sounding synth lines chirp and beep.

The thing about Luxxury is that they're able to demonstrate their techno-rock influences without sounding like a band imitation or coming off as derivative. Instead they embrace the style and release it in their own unique fashion. There's never any concern that they might be a gimmick with all of their references to sex because each track stands on its own without being repetitive. There's a swagger to each song but they realize when to put the tongue in cheek and when to put it to better effect elsewhere.

Luxxury gives yo u just a taste with "The Drunk EP," whetting the appetite for their soon to be released follow-up "Sex With Rich People." Like a one-night stand they're full of sex but leave you wanting more come morning.

- THE GREAT NOTHING

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Omega Point is rapidly becoming this decade's answer to Wax Trax, a Chicago label standing at the forefront of electronic rock music. Luxxury is just the latest cool band to come down that particular pipe.

Think Lords of Acid with a modicum of taste, or, say, KMFDM with a sense of proportion. Or, you know, the Cure with an overtly sexual component. In other words, we're talking about real rock music with an electronic dance rhythm section. The press notes make a reference to Roxy Music. And while the music doesn't fit that, the style definitely does.

That style is a wonderfully stirred-up mishmash of danceable rock music, with more than a dash of pure sex. The sort of thing that is instantly addictive to an awful lot of people. Turn it up. And let nature take its course.

- AIDING & ABETTING

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This four-song EP is, from what I gather, a reissue of an earlier record. Or maybe it isn't. Either way, its history shouldn't bother you all that much, because it doesn't change the fact that this music is too sleazy for its own good. Yeah, it's rather randy, glam-laden techno that's hedonistic in every possible way, reminiscent of vintage My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. "All The Way" and "Disco Noir" both have a hint or two of Roxy Music mixed with New Order. "Disco Noir" borrows too much from "Blue Monday" for my taste. Still, this is well-done sleazy music made for sleazy guys with big hair and cheap sunglasses and the foolish girls who fall in love with them. Not bad, but I feel a little dirty now...

- MUNDANE SOUNDS

*******

Kinda crunchy, fuzzy glam electro indie rock. Feels like getting trashed and falling asleep on the carpet. I think.

- ADD REVIEWS

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Luxxury is an international disco punk band approximating the sound of New Order, Devoand David Bowie lounging in the penthouse suite with Pil and The Faint while the Hilton sisters clean the pool.

- ELECTROCORE.COM