Luminous Frenzy - Three Cliffs Bay

by John Clarkson

published: 22 / 4 / 2007

Label: Freeport Records
Format: 7"

Haunting trip hop on new single from London-based trio Luminous Frenzy

Review

Luminous Frenzy have impeccable credentials. Guitarist Frank Frenzy is a successful composer for film and theatre, and was an underground rave and club DJ in the 1990’s. Singer Luminous is a legendary party hostess and was recently voted one of the ‘World’s Top 100 Female DJs’, while multi-instrumentalist Adam Thomas is an emerging leftfield producer and programmer. With so much else going on in their lives, one wonders how they have found time as well to form a band, but thankfully they have. ‘Three Cliffs Bay’ is stunning. The first track to feature Thomas who joined the duo after the release of their debut album ‘Violence Ambience’ in 2005, it is taken from a new album which the band are currently working on, and is an instant trip-hop classic. Inspired by the place of the same name on the beautiful Gower Peninsula on the South Wales coastline, a brooding keyboard riff from Thomas merges with a shrilly ambient, slowly raising guitar line from Frenzy to hypnotic effect. “So we buried your body at Three Cliffs Bay in a little hide-away in the sand” croons Luminous wistfully as an opening line, before going on to tell of her lost love and her hopes to return to his grave one day. Immediately memorable, both compelling and haunting, ‘Three Cliff Bays’ is completely breathtaking.