Laurence Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee - Los Angeles (2LP)

Los Angeles finds two of post‑punk’s most distinctive drummers locking into a new city and a new language, with a producer who knows how to make the ground shake. Released 3 November 2023 on Play It Again Sam, this collaboration between Laurence “Lol” Tolhurst of The Cure, Budgie of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Creatures, and Garret “Jacknife” Lee turns the myth of LA inside out. You get glamour and grit, wildfires on the horizon and sirens in the alley, all mapped out by tom rolls, clattering percussion and synths that hum like neon.

The first thing that grabs you is the drum conversation. Tolhurst and Budgie both have history building whole worlds from toms and texture, and that chemistry is still there. The grooves feel physical. Not flashy, just purposeful. They pulse like streetlights blinking through a late‑night drive. Lee doesn’t crowd them. He builds a chassis underneath with sub‑bass and granular synths, then lets the drums speak. The result sits somewhere between post‑punk ritual and modern electronic heft. You can almost see the sticks fray at the edges.

The title track is the gateway. James Murphy turns up and slides from deadpan witness to cracked yelp, a perfect guide for a city that never lets you pin it down. The beat locks to a motorik thrum, and every little hand‑clap or shaker lands with intent. Murphy’s vocal rides the groove without stealing it, which says a lot about the mix. Lee has worked with heavy hitters like U2 and R.E.M., and you can hear that stadium‑scale sense of space, but he keeps the focus tight. The song feels like an overheard conversation in a big room, the air charged and close.

Across the rest of Los Angeles, the trio lean into mood and movement rather than nostalgia. There are nods to their pasts, sure. A chorus creeps in with the kind of bruised melody Tolhurst’s old band would float at closing time, and Budgie’s knack for turning a snare into a heartbeat remains uncanny. But the palette is modern. Synths smear like smoke, bass hits low and clean, and percussion arrives in layers, from scraped metal to rattling blocks. There is spoken‑word in places, the words plain and unadorned, which suits a record that treats the city as a character, flawed but magnetic.

Lee’s LA studio is part of the sound. You can hear the room in the drum skins, a little air around the hits that gives the record warmth. Nothing feels gridded to death. Patterns slip and return, as if the players kept the red light rolling and trusted feel over neatness. That looseness is a gift. It lets the songs bloom, and it keeps the album from turning into a feature reel. Guests appear, the core trio stays centred. The sequencing helps too. Tension builds, releases, then circles back like another lap on the freeway.

What pushes Los Angeles over the line is its sense of lived time. These aren’t kids chasing a scene. They are lifers taking notes, turning the mess and beauty of a city into rhythm and colour. When the synths swell, you get a flash of sunset through smog. When the drums thin out to wood and skin, you hear an apartment with one lamp on and a TV murmuring next door. It is a record that sits happily next to classic post‑punk and contemporary electronic records without feeling stuck between them. It earns its own lane.

If you can track down Los Angeles vinyl, do it. The low end breathes on wax, the toms feel bigger, and the quieter passages open up. It is the sort of pressing that makes you rearrange your speakers and text a mate. Crate‑diggers hunting for Laurence Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee vinyl will want this sitting near the Cure reissues, the Banshees classics and your modern left‑field favourites. If you prefer to buy Laurence Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee records online, there are solid options, and it pairs nicely with other Laurence Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee albums on vinyl. I first spun it on a rainy Sunday, then took it to a friend’s place with a better setup, the kind of casual A‑B session you fall into after a Melbourne record store run. It held up, loud or soft. For anyone trawling through vinyl records Australia for something that bridges eras without leaning on cosplay, this will scratch the itch.

Los Angeles is not a museum piece or a genre exercise. It is three artists with deep roots finding fresh ground together, and a city that keeps giving them material. The drums talk, the machines glow, the guests pull focus when needed, and the songs keep you driving just a bit further than you planned.