Stream: Luke Top, ‘Poltergeist’

on
0
Luke Top (Photo by Savannah Sjostrom)

Maybe we should be blaming everything on some evil supernatural force?

On his new single “Poltergeist,” singer-songwriter Luke Top gets out of his own “comfort zone” to croon about his demons. It’s his first original since his 2018 EP “The Dumb-Show,” and he is donating proceeds from sales and streams to the Loveland Foundation, which helps Black women gain access to mental health professionals.

Top is the onetime frontman of the band Fool’s Gold, which released three albums between 2009 and ’15. He went solo for the album “Suspect Highs” in 2016, and from his new home recording studio in Panorama City, Top is prepping the release of a batch of new songs made with collaborators such as Jason Quever (Papercuts), Alex Siegel and Will Canzoneri (Vampire Weekend).

“When I think about the sound of this track,” he says of the new single, “I picture 1970s Dutch reggae played after a John Bonham drum lesson (not that I’m much of a Zeppelin fan), with a synth lineup ripped out of a William Onyeabor studio photo or a Les Baxter record. It’s stamped with psychedelic tape delays that swing upwards into space, all while conjuring up a self-reflexive sermon about lowly inner demons.

“This song actually began in a dream, so it has always had this odd, REM-cycle energy floating around inside of it. It was self-recorded under quarantine in my new home on the outskirts of the San Fernando Valley. There I’m surrounded by retired KROQ-era new wave musicians, Juggalos and a bagel factory. In other words, a perfect storm of creative opportunity.”

||| Stream: “Poltergeist”

||| Previously: “The Dumb-Show,” “I May Never Leave,” “Lucky Penny,” “On the Shore”