Albums
Sample Songs
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Green Rainbow
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Feeling Good
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Mo'Bridge, South Dakota
Lunar Drive
Lunar Drive are a globally challenged band, based in both London and various locations in the USA. It is a blend of Native American music, mixed with UK and US dance music, along with a heavy dose of pop.
"Here at Black Mesa Arizona" quickly soared to number five on the World Music Chart in Europe after its November 1996 release in England by Nation Records. Co-produced by Sandy Hoover and Count Dubulah, from Transglobal Underground, the voices heard on the album include Kevin Locke, Sam Minkler, Rey Cantil, Sandy Hoover and John Benally.
"All Together Here" is the second album. Released August 1999. The band line-up includes Rey Cantil, Reuben Fasthorse, Ed Walksnice and Sandy Hoover. It comes with a bit more pop and more vocal than the first album.
The band has performed in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Belgium and were invited to be part of Peter Gabriel's recording week at his studio in Bath, England along with the other musicians from Womad UK 1995.
Reviews
"A terrific record but what to call it? Black-top techno? Pueblo trance? High desert trip-hop? All of these and more: the best kind of crossover, in other words. Sampling Native American songs and chants into a prefab dance beat would have been one thing, but to have the various elements rippling into and around each other like this is really special. The source music has been radically rewired without losing its old modality. Even the most congested dance tracks have that lone cloud spaciousness, the vastness expected of Arizona and celebrated by Whitman in his Song of The Open Road: "The music falling where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted. Not just innovative but sustained, substantial - and great fun." - The Guardian, London, 25 October 1996
Excerpt from the review of the live Womad show in Adelaide Australia: "...Theirs is an aggressive sound with a gentleness of soul -- the full power of the dance, hip hop world and its barrages of technology, throwing energy into the crowds. Scratches, mixes, samples and ancient invocations - cross cultural and cross-generational." -Rip It Up magazine, March 3, 1997, Adelaide Australia
"At first listen, you might peg Lunar Drive as another one of those electronic groups that samples various world music sources to give their compositions an 'exotic' feel. This is not, however, particularly fair or accurate. Lunar Drive's music is an outgrowth of production whiz Sandy Hoover's fascination with Native American culture; vocalist partners Ed Walknice and Reuben Fast Horse supply traditional and freeform songs over the beat, while poet/MC Rey Cantil provides the words to complete the equation. All Together Here offers everything from Beth Orton-tempo trip-hop ('Trees Wave By') and slick dancefloor wizardry ('Big Fat Sky') to ethereal hip-hop ('All Eyes Were Stones') and slamming techno intensity ('Look at Them') -- and while the Native American songs and music are handled respectfully, this isn't another painfully earnest and arty ethno-techno disc. Lunar Drive clearly know how to have fun. If you've ever dreamed of a less drugged-out Spacetime Continuum, a more wide-awake Single Gun Theory or even a more culturally diverse Underworld, make room on your music shelf for All Together Here." - Splendid E-zine