The Lavender Flu

Conjuring a powerfully trippy sound that's a lo-fi mashup of psychedelia, garage rock, folk-rock, various stripes of '70s rock, and improvisational experimentalism, the Lavender Flu create a one-of-a-kind variety of acid rock that whispers, howls, or sings at the will of the individual songs. Initially a home-recording project, the Lavender Flu made a grand-scale debut with 2016's Heavy Air, a 30-song epic that overflowed with sounds and styles. As the project evolved into a band that could play live shows, they explored the possibilities of the recording studio on 2020's Barbarian Dust and issued real-time improvised albums like 2024's Los Pelacaras. 2025's Tracing the Sand by the Pool captured them in a (relatively) concise and song-oriented frame of mind.

The Lavender Flu was founded by guitarist Chris Gunn, who had previously been a member of the noisy Portland, Oregon band <a href="spotify:artist:2NM4dbjQFcf4bMMowPBnSY">the Hunches</a>, and the San Francisco-based garage rockers <a href="spotify:artist:2ZtnzkPlsqWlax9SaI3eKH">the Hospitals</a>. During his downtimes from other projects and working his day jobs, Gunn began recording music using an analog home-recording setup, initially working solo but later inviting friends to play on his sessions. Between 2009 and 2014, Gunn had completed an impressive number of tracks that ran the gamut from fuzztone freakouts to primitive psychedelic introspection, and in 2016, he pulled together 30 songs from the stash and issued a double album, Heavy Air, credited to the Lavender Flu. It was well received in the indie music press, and Gunn decided to turn the Lavender Flu into a proper band with the addition of his brother Lucas Gunn on guitar, Scott Simmons on bass and keyboards, and <a href="spotify:artist:7GrxinlSDHe1dzL8Hho3w3">Ben Spencer</a> on drums. The four musicians gathered at a house in Arch Cape, Oregon, in view of the Pacific Ocean, to record the second Lavender Flu LP, 2018's Mow the Glass, a shorter but similarly adventurous LP; it was their first release for the independent noise/punk label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22In+the+Red%22">In the Red</a>. A series of spontaneous, free-form jams recorded at the band's practice space were edited into four selections for 2019's Admiration for a Dancer, an album released in a limited, numbered vinyl edition of 275 copies. For 2020's Barbarian Dust, the Lavender Flu worked in professional recording studios for the first time (including a facility in Portland that once belonged to R&B hitmakers <a href="spotify:artist:2The4Ur661sLPGndcUuuLu">Nu Shooz</a>), giving the music a richer sound without compromising their anarchic spirit. The same year, they offered a look back at their home-recording roots with Tomorrow Cleaners, a collection of material that was at one time planned to be the second Lavender Flu album but had to be scrapped due to technical issues. 2022's Flutes Rising was a limited-edition cassette-only release available only at the group's live shows, and 2023's Assorted Promenades was a nine-song EP that included a striking cover of <a href="spotify:artist:0NHSh9S0VQiFfsEFbvhRXN">Moby Grape</a>'s "I Am Not Willing." 2024's Los Pelacaras was another limited-edition collection of improvisational material, pressed to vinyl in a run of 150 copies. (Los Pelacaras and Admiration for a Dancer would later be made available as digital downloads.) 2025's Tracing the Sand by the Pool saw the band once again working on their own, with a set of songs that were direct and concise in a fresh new way. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi