For most Americans, 1990's Gala was their introduction to Lush. For some of us, the compilation was a neat way of collecting imports, a few rarities, and the new single and its flip-sides. Taken as a whole, Gala, is, of course, full of extraordinary pleasures. It remains one of the seminal dream-pop releases. And now it's being reissued in spectacular fashion by 4AD.
In 1989, as a record store employee obsessed with Cocteau Twins and most everything on 4AD, the stories about Lush in NME and Melody Maker had, like a few months earlier with The Stone Roses and The Sundays, made me a fan of a band I'd not even heard yet. My coworker Kathy set about to get herself the first Ride EP on import and I set about to get the first Lush EP, both imports not easily acquired by our store's own usual suppliers. Not sure where Kathy got Ride, but I am pretty sure I got Scar at Tower Records across from Lisner in D.C. A few days later, Kathy and I converged in the Record Co-Op and blasted the competing EP's on the store's stereo, letting the sounds echo out into the halls of the University of Maryland's Stamp Student Union. And I think Kathy found Lush's Mad Love EP before I did. So all the early Lush songs here from those first two releases are pretty much burned into my memory in such a way that makes the music on Gala vital to me still.
Gala does a neat trick by presenting the material in somewhat reverse order. The three songs of the "Sweetness and Light" single start the collection, with the lead track still sounding absolutely astounding some 35 years later. The Robin Guthrie-produced second EP, 1990's Mad Love comes next. And while I prefer his very jangly version of "De-Luxe", I always felt like he overdid it a bit on "Thoughtforms", a fave for me from 1989's Scar. Well, maybe I just prefer the version on 1989's mini-album Scar more because it's the first Lush song I fell wildly in love with? The charms on the 1989 mini-album include "Scarlet" and "Bitter", a pretty punk-y number. The closer on Scar, "Etherial" always seemed overlooked to me, especially since the vibe here sounds so much like the material the band would perfect later on records like Spooky (1992).
What made Gala essential in 1990 even for those of us who had the imports of Mad Love and Scar was the presence of a few rarities, notably an Abba cover. "Hey Hey Helen" roars out of the speakers and still stands as a textbook example of the charms of this kind of material. Leave it to a cover of a song written by a Swedish chart-topping outfit much earlier to be a textbook example of shoegaze, a term I didn't even hear until 1991. I may not have had that descriptive label to throw at "Hey Hey Helen" in late 1990, but I do know that this Abba cover got thrown onto almost every mix-tape I made for the next year. A longer, Robin Guthrie-produced version of "Scarlet" from 1989's John Fryer-produced Scar closes the compilation.
Sounding better than it's ever sounded thanks to remastering by Kevin Vanbergen, Gala (35th Anniversary Edition) is absolutely essential. If you've never heard it, this stands as a good introduction to Lush, and the sounds of the peak years of this imprint. If you're already a fan, the new artowrk from Chris Bigg and liners from Jenny Hval are compelling reasons to splurge for the record (or CD) again, along with the improved sound quality of this 2025 edition.
I really can't rave enough about this, nor overstate how important the early material of Lush was to this listener.
Gala (35th Anniversary Edition) by Lush is out on Friday via 4AD. Details on Bandcamp too.
[Photo: Paul Cox]