Over Two Decades of Lucky Dragons’ :: “Dark Falcon” - 555 Recordings
It’s been a little over two decades since the spontaneous manifestation of the LA-based collective, Lucky Dragons, released their infamous 2002 debut “Dark Falcon” . What seems like a whole entire eternity since the new dawn in electronic experimentation, pulverizing performances under the digital blanket of the night sky and the textural exploration among a new generation of sonic seducers, the early 2000s were a special and yet, devastating time if you were in its fabulous fibers. How you found things and how those things found you was more important than anything can be now with the instantaneous nature of things, but that's not to say that one generation, or decade, was better than the other. It was just a simpler time regarding the elements of music, art and creative cultures of the world. The group's ongoing members and creative colleagues, Sarah Rara and Luke Fishbeck, have perfectly pushed the boundaries of both landscape and soundscape in music’s endless narrative across their 20-plus years in electric existence and as we focus and celebrate their boundless classic “Dark Falcon”, let us simply shed light on how much energy, love and soul they’ve breathed into this absolutely sublime project all this time. Across the album’s conscious collection of poetic pieces, sonic scrapes and atmospheric accidents, the iconic imagination of the band comes through as romantically raw and all out exciting, as they express the momentary collapse of musical memory and its fading formation into the cool, calm and collected waters of community consciousness.
Surging through the equal balance of past, present and future, while simultaneously testing the fruitful fabrics of an eclectic selection of instrumentation and magical melodies, Lucky Dragons embrace the elements of both the natural world and the digitized ecosystem with the early developments within the group. The name of their group, The Lucky Dragon (Fukuryu Maru), was inspired by the historical tale of a Japanese commercial tuna boat which was severely damaged during the devastating repercussions of the US’s hydrogen bomb fallout in the spring of 1954. Upon clearing the ship of further radiation and elements of total destruction, it was later painted entirely black, placed back out to sea in its newly reincarnated skin, glowing under the sally sun and would be further known as “The Dark Falcon”. There isn’t any sort of randomness, or oddly selected textures, sounds and harmonious hues when it comes to the band’s impeccable ability to engulf its listeners in the ethereal webs of their tonal trap. It’s all manifested, accurately tasteful and blissfully bewildering like that of some comic bonfire bringing everyone closer and closer to its familiar flame.
With tracks like “It’s Hard To Fall Asleep”, “All These Wires Between Us”, “Mercy” and the album’s transcending opener “Heartbreaker”, Lucky Dragons guide their eager listeners into the disfigured darkness by the light of esoteric education and the currency of community, while its fractured flame flickers across the pulverized pupils of the groups engaged onlookers. Complexly compiled in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia in August and September 2002, the group would go on to release, cosmically capture and effortlessly explore an incredible body of work that is both spiritual and physical. You simply have to be there to feel it and as veterans in volume and visceral connection, Lucky Dragons have become one of the greats with “Dark Falcon” simply becoming a wildly wonderful introduction into the band’s raging repertoire, that’s only a bookend in a never-ending story in search for the ultimate digital depths in sound.
