Lavender Flu – Assorted Promenades LP Mind Meld

“We’ve been keeping this one under our hat for nearly two years. On the short list of people, I wanted to work with when the original Mind Meld concept was hatched was Chris Gunn (Lavender Flu/ Hunches). I reached out to the Lavender Flu crew at the time (2019) a few emails were exchanged, but it wasn’t till I moved to Portland in 2020 that this collaboration came to fruition. Sure, the original label idea was to work with people outside the genre or project they were known for but when one of my favorite bands ask me to put out a record, I wasn’t going to let something like self-imposed parameters get in the way. Besides Lavender Flu completely fits the vibe I’m trying to cultivate here at Mind Meld. I eagerly said yes but asked if they would be cool with forgoing the usual pre-release rigamarole and let this record magically appear on release day. Well now here we are….

The new Lavender Flu EP, Assorted Promenades, was started at a point during the pandemic when the band had no practice space and limited options for getting together as a full band. They decided to record a single based around a Moby Grape cover (I am not willing) and spontaneously composed tracks built up on the tape machine. Realizing they had too much material, it morphed into a 12 inch at 45 RPM in the style of the early Flying Nun EPs. By this time they had a space to work in so another cover (Dream Girl by Oscar Mack) was recorded full band style to make a nice long 9 track EP “