YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, especially when home isn’t
as roomy or singular a space as you once imagined. Take Lush, the gorgeously
melodic, femme-forward, feedback-soaked dream-pop ensemble devised by
old-pals-turned-guitarists/vocalists Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson. After
starting in 1988, the London-based band got so lumped into 4AD label gauziness
and the symmetry of shoegaze with the forward-leaning bombast of their initial
EPs and first two albums—1992’s Spooky and 1994’s Split—that, by the time of
their echoless Lovelife in 1996, Lush’s blunt, melodic tones were viewed as a
sellout to Britpop. That was all well and good, however, as the third album was
the quartet’s best selling. But the door to further success was shuttered when
drummer Chris Acland committed suicide in October of that year, effectively
ending Lush and creating a legend for a band that lasted less than a decade.
What makes Lush even more fascinating is that their leaders didn’t wear out
their welcome: Anderson formed Sing-Sing, which sounded little like her
former band; Berenyi went into magazine editing. Presently, though, nearly all
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF 4AD
of Lush's releases have been reissued as one big five-disc box set called Chorus.
There’s also the new Blind Spot EP that acts as a preview to a potential new
album, and the requisite reunion tour—all of which gives Berenyi and Anderson
plenty to talk about.