Lumerians
American psychedelic quartet
title: "Lumerians" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["alternative-rock-groups-from-california", "musical-groups-from-san-francisco", "progressive-rock-musical-groups-from-california", "psychedelic-rock-music-groups-from-california", "american-space-rock-musical-groups", "knitting-factory-records-artists", "partisan-records-artists"] description: "American psychedelic quartet" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumerians" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American psychedelic quartet ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | |
| caption | Lumerians |
| origin | San Francisco, California, USA |
| years_active | 2006–present |
| genre | {{hlist |
| author | Kimberly Chun |
| title | Frisco Freakout: Nascent psychedelic scene? |
| newspaper | SFGate.com |
| quote | ... the show's lineup include Heavy Hills, Lumerians... |
| date | October 8, 2009 |
| url | https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/Frisco-Freakout-Nascent-psychedelic-scene-3284251.php |
| access-date | 2011-05-15 |
| }} | experimental rock |
| author | Michelle Broder Van Dyke |
| title | Lumerians |
| newspaper | SFGate.com |
| date | October 15, 2009 |
| url | https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/Lumerians-3283608.php |
| access-date | 2011-05-15 |
| }} | drone<ref name |
| label | {{Flatlist |
| website | |
| current_members | Tyler Green; guitar, keys, synth |
| Marc Melzer; bass, vocals | |
| Jason Miller; keyboard, synth, guitar, vocals | |
| Chris Musgrave; drums | |
| past_members | Luis Vasquez; percussion, synth, vocals |
| Tony Peluso; percussion | |
| :: |
| name = | image = | caption = Lumerians | origin = San Francisco, California, USA | years_active = 2006–present | genre = {{hlist|Space rock|psychedelic rock{{cite news |author= Kimberly Chun |title= Frisco Freakout: Nascent psychedelic scene? |newspaper= SFGate.com |quote= ... the show's lineup include Heavy Hills, Lumerians... |date= October 8, 2009 |url= https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/Frisco-Freakout-Nascent-psychedelic-scene-3284251.php |access-date= 2011-05-15 |author= Michelle Broder Van Dyke |title= Lumerians |newspaper= SFGate.com |date= October 15, 2009 |url= https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/Lumerians-3283608.php |access-date= 2011-05-15 | label = {{Flatlist|
- Knitting Factory Records
- Partisan Records
- Rococo Records
- Hands in the Dark
- Permanent Records | associated_acts = | website = | current_members = Tyler Green; guitar, keys, synth Marc Melzer; bass, vocals Jason Miller; keyboard, synth, guitar, vocals Chris Musgrave; drums | past_members = Luis Vasquez; percussion, synth, vocals Tony Peluso; percussion
Lumerians is a San Francisco Bay Area-based quartet which has a psychedelic{{cite news |author= Daniel Levin Becker |title= New Lumerians Video Puts the Psychedelic in Psychedelic Rock |publisher= San Francisco Weekly |date= Mar 15, 2011 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/03/new_lumerians_video_puts_the_p.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |author= Ian S. Port |title= Best Coast Announced as Surprise Headliner for Aquarius Records' 40th Birthday Party |newspaper= SF Weekly |quote= ... electro-pscyh mindbenders Lumerians... |date= Oct 19, 2010 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/10/best_coast_announced_as_surpri.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |author= Ian S. Port |title= Lumerians Talk Video Projections, Recording in a Church, and "Space-Rock" |newspaper= SF Weekly |date= Apr 22, 2011 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/04/lumerians_talk_video_projectio.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15
History
The band was founded by Tyler Green, Marc Melzer, Jason Miller and Chris Musgrave in 2006. Early rehearsals and recordings were produced in San Francisco, but the group has since relocated to Oakland. They have their own recording studio in a converted church in Oakland, California. The band's sound was influenced by groups such as Sonic Youth, Krautrock groups such as Can and Neu!, and African and South American Psych music from the 1960s and 1970s. In mid-2011 Vasquez left the group to focus on his project The Soft Moon{{cite news |author= Johnny Ray Huston |title= Noise Pop 2011 short takes – Page 2 |publisher= San Francisco Bay Guardian |quote= Luis Vasquez is a busy guy — in addition to his band the Soft Moon, he also plays with the Lumerians, who'll be putting out an album this spring. |date= 2011-02-15 |url= http://www.sfbg.com/2011/02/15/noise-pop-2011-short-takes?page=0,1 |accessdate= 2011-05-15|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120910140201/http://www.sfbg.com/2011/02/15/noise-pop-2011-short-takes?page=0,1|archivedate=2012-09-10}} The Lumerians have worked with vocalist Rebecca Coseboom.{{cite news |title= Rebecca Coseboom, Stripmall Architecture (formerly from Halou as well) |publisher= NPR |quote= Rebecca will be on the new UNKLE album. She sang a track with them for the Lumerians (yet another great SF band) |date= 2011-05-15 |url= https://www.npr.org/buckets/music/women/artist.php?artistId=392 |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |title= Pop and Rock Listings for Dec. 24–30 |newspaper= The New York Times |quote= The band hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001, but the songs are practically incidental to the spectacle. With Lumerians |date= December 23, 2010 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/arts/music/24pop.html |accessdate= 2011-05-15 Lumerians released their first full length LP, Transmalinnia in March 2011. In July 2012, Lumerians released their second LP, a collection of instrumental spontaneous compositions titled "Transmissions from Telos Vol. IV." "Transmissions" was released as a limited 300 edition transparent vinyl by French label Hands in the Dark in Europe and an edition of 500 (150 transparent sea blue and 350 Bone) on Permanent Records in the US. In late November and early December 2012, Lumerians completed their first European tour, ending the year with the release of the Horizon Structures EP on Knitting Factory Records. A limited 500 edition vinyl of Horizon Structures is packaged with "4D Transdimensional portal viewing glasses" for viewing the video for "The Bloom," shot in ChromaDepth.
Lumerians released LP The High Frontier in May 2013 in the UK and Europe, supported by performances in UK, France, Netherlands and Belgium. The album was released August 2013 in the US, coinciding with a series of dates supporting My Bloody Valentine on the second half of their US tour, followed by a series of UK and European dates in 2014, culminating with them closing out the Roadburn Festival's Afterburner in Tilburg, Netherlands. Lumerians ended 2014 with the release of Transmissions from Telos Vol. III, in December. In 2015, Lumerians supported Vol. III with select shows across North America, UK, and Europe, including Levitation Chicago, Levitation France and Liverpool Psych Fest.
Lumerians played few live dates in 2016 or 2017, taking time to focus on writing and recording, but closed out the last night of the 2016 Desert Daze festival in Joshua Tree, Calif.
Psychedelic performances
The band received positive critical attention not only for its "psychedelic sound" but for achieving "intense psychedelic projections" using a vast array of synchronized equipment during its public performances. Marc Melzer explained:
A report in SFGate described the band as "masked and draped in monastic cassocks" with performances that were "hypnotic" using "spirarling psych drones", according to music critic Michelle Broder Van Dyke, who elaborated that their "keyboard-driven rhythms" evoked "lost relics, like the mythic underseas continent its band name references." A music reporter described one performance:
When asked in an interview how the group chose their name, Miller said:
Some music critics have described the music as space rock.{{cite news |author= Kimberly Chun |title= Lots to see at First Thursday at 49 Geary, S.F. |newspaper= SFGate.com |quote= ... space jams by Oakland's Lumerians ... |date= May 12, 2011 |url= http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/11/NS0C1JBTSB.DTL |accessdate= 2011-05-15
Knitting Factory records
In 2010, the band was approached by Knitting Factory Records after listening to their music on MySpace.{{cite news |title= Unpredictable Punks Bring New Songs To Slim's |publisher= KTVU.com |quote= ... with rising local psych-drone favorites Lumerians, who recently issued their debut for Knitting Factory Records 'Transmalinnia.' |date= April 17, 2011 |url= http://www.ktvu.com/entertainment/27526452/detail.html |archive-url= https://archive.today/20130127070153/http://www.ktvu.com/entertainment/27526452/detail.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= January 27, 2013 |accessdate= 2011-05-15
Reviews
Reviews have been positive for their albums{{cite news |author= Guardian Staff Writers |title= 5 Things |publisher= San Francisco Bay Guardian |quote= 5. ... the stellar Kosmische album by Bay Area rockers Lumerians... |date= March 10, 2011 |url= http://www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision/2011/03/10/5-things-march-10-2011 |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |author= SF Weekly Staff |title= Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music |newspaper= SF Weekly |quote= Oakland psych-drone outfit Lumerians released new album Transmalinnia last week on Knitting Factory records. After seeing the band's eerie live show a bunch of times — and loving it — we can finally hold our own extended space-jams at home. |date= Mar 9, 2011 |url= http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-03-09/music/sizzle-fizzle-highs-and-lows-from-the-last-week-in-s-f-music/ |accessdate= 2011-05-15
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Music critic Daniel Levin Becker of San Francisco Weekly wrote that their song Gaussian Castles on the album Transmalinnia was a "hallucination unto itself complete with cavernous room, ominous reverb and far-off galloping drums" and commented that the accompanying video "scans like the unholy lovechild of an iTunes visualization algorithm and a year's worth of footage of the Serengeti compressed into five minutes."
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Critic Ian S. Port in SF Weekly described the band as "stunning Oakland psych-rockers"{{cite news |author= Ian S. Port |title= Music Links: Lumerians' Trip, Artists to Watch, Trackademicks' Latest, and Jerry Garcia's Kitchen |newspaper= SF Weekly |quote= Hear "Atlanta Brook," a new track from stunning Oakland psych-rockers Lumerians. [The Bay Bridged] |date= Jan 14, 2011 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/01/music_links_lumerians_rule_art.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |author= Ian S. Port |title= Oakland's Lumerians Give Pensive Psych-Rock a Good Name in "Atlanta Brook" |newspaper= SF Weekly |date= Apr 4, 2011 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/04/oaklands_lumerians_give_pensiv.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15 |author= Ian S. Port |title= Bay Music Links: New Young L Mixtape, S.F. Garage-Rockers Invade a Cruise Ship, and More |newspaper= SF Weekly |quote= We highly recommend Lumerians' trippy, drone-y Transmalinnia.... |date= Mar 4, 2011 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/03/bay_music_links.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15
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Music critic Carla Selvin in SF Weekly described a live performance in which the bass guitar sound "reverberated so strong it felt like a seizure" and that the beat was "intoxicating" from the Congo drums with an "over-saturated synth-drone" which created a "trance-like lull" on the dance floor.{{cite news |author= Carla Selvin |title= Last Night: Garotas Suecas, Greg Ashley, & Lumerians at Rickshaw Stop |newspaper= SF Weekly |date= Mar 26, 2010 |url= http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/03/last_night_garotas_suecas_greg.php |accessdate= 2011-05-15
Discography
Singles:
- "Burning Mirrors/Cheveux Fous" 7", 2010, Rococo Records
EPs:
- "S/T EP", 2008, Subterranean Elephants
- "Horizon Structures", 2012, Knitting Factory Records
LPs
- Transmalinnia, 2011, Knitting Factory Records
- "Transmissions from Telos Vol. IV", 2012, Hands in the Dark (EU), Permanent (US)
- The High Frontier, 2013, Partisan Records
- "Transmissions from Telos Vol. III", 2014, Cardinal Fuzz (EU), Permanent Records (US)
- Call of the Void, 2018, Fuzz Club
References
References
- "Lumerians – Lumerians {{!}} Allmusic".
- Medina, Oscar. "Retro No Retro". East Bay Express.
- (September 14, 2010). "The Answer EP Out Now". unkle.com.
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