Artist: Lotus PlazaAlbum: The Floodlight CollectiveGenre(s): Ambient, ShoegazeSounds Like: Deerhunter, My Bloody Valentine75 DecibelsStart off by admitting that a band like Deerhunter isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Logically, we then make the assumption that Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt and his solo project Lotus Plaza are not for everyone either. Nonetheless, with ‘The Floodlight Collective’ Pundt has released an album full of familiar, but still impressive, ambient shoegaze melodies.Both familiarity and impressiveness lie in the fact that Lotus Plaza audibly borrows from the techniques and trademarks that make Deerhunter so interesting. In fact, comparisons to Deerhunter and its avowed influence, My Bloody Valentine are inevitable: incoherent lyrics, multilayered instrumentation and short pop hooks punctuate every track on the album. That said, Lotus Plaza’s sound is cleaner than both My Bloody Valentine’s and Deerhunter’s, with notably less emphasis on noise throughout.The tracks that effectively meld pop and ambience together succeed the most, despite a suspicion that they sound too derivative. Tracks like ‘These Years’ and ‘Whiteout’ put vocals entirely in the background against a haze of instrumentation, where they rightfully belong on this record.’Quicksand’ begins with a layered atmosphere of guitar but abandons it roughly two minutes in, giving way to a repeating hook that is gradually subsumed by a reemerging ambience. The result is a simplistic, yet beautifully powerful second track, and likely the best of the album.If nothing else, one thing Pundt learned from Deerhunter was how to compose a closing song. ‘A Threaded Needle’ expressively ends the album with a combination of synth and distortion reminiscent of the masterful ‘Twilight at Carbon Lake’ on ‘Microcastles.’The main issue with ‘The Floodlight Collective’ is its derivative nature. While Pundt is undoubtedly talented as a solo artist, his album breaks no new ground. Like ‘Panda Bear,’ the first solo release by Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox, Lotus Plaza’s debut is worth listening to, but by no means legendary. Fans of Deerhunter, at least, will not be disappointed.

epvilasb@syr.edu