Biography

Not so much a band as the musical project of Yokohama-based musician Takeuchi Rie, Luminous Orange have been through more than 30 members and support members since being formed in 1992, including Nakau Kentarou and Inazawa Ahito from indie punk band Number Girl and Ian Masters of the Pale Saints. The influence of 1980s American alternative rock bands such as Sonic Youth and the Pixies, and particularly British shoegazer bands such as My Bloody Valentine, is a constant throughout Luminous Orange's career, although early releases tended toward a more melodic, less distorted guitar sound reminiscent of Teenage Fanclub or early Primal Scream, a sound clearly evident on their first full album, 1996's Vivid Short Trip. Released in 1997, Waiting for the Summer saw Luminous Orange edging toward a more effects-based guitar sound as well as more eclectic songwriting, influenced by Tokyo's "Shibuya-kei" sound, which came to the fore more strongly in the following year's Puppy Dog Mail EP, released on Ian Masters' Friendly Science label. Issued in 1998, Sugarcoated, the group's first true shoegazer album, made its sonic intentions clear with a cover version of Ride's "Chelsea Girl," and featured a greater reliance on distortion and a more layered sound. Luminousorangesuperplastic pushed further in this direction in 1999, and after a brief flirtation with Cornelius' Trattoria label, the band produced the well-received Drop You Vivid Colours, featuring the richest, most multi-layered musical textures and melodies yet, as well as some of the most sonically abrasive sounds. In 2004 Cream Cone Records put out a heavily augmented re-release of Luminous Orange's debut under the title Vivid Short Trip (7 Stops Farther), but apart from that, the band released no new output until the 2007 mini-album Sakura Swirl on U.S. label Music Related, although ever-shifting lineups of the band continued to tour intermittently throughout this period, playing the CMJ Music Marathon in 2004 and South by Southwest in 2006 and 2007. ~ Ian Martin, Rovi