John Frusciante - Letur Lefr EP Reveiw

http://johnfrusciante.com/

So I thought was about time to review some new music and although it was released a little over a month ago, I couldn't go past John Frusciante's new EP 'Letur Lefr'. Anyone who is familiar with Frusciante's work needs no introduction to this modern day genius. However, for those of you who aren't, here's a brief introduction; John Frusciante was the guitarist for a little LA band known as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, replacing original guitarist Hillel Slovak who died tragically from a drug overdose in 1988. Frusciante wrote several albums with the chili peppers, leaving once during his time with them for personal reasons, and a second (and so far final) time in 2009 after completion of the album 'Stadium Arcadium' to work on his solo career.

Frusciante has so far completed two EP's and 11 solo albums, the most recent of which being the Letur Lefr EP and the album PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone which is set to be released late September 2012. John's solo work emanates beauty and a duality of simplicity and complexity to embody the soul of his music which has been the driving force of the Chili Peppers music that we have known and loved for years. The 2009 masterpiece 'The Empyrean' was both the auricular and philosophically beautiful  preceding album to the Letur Lefr EP and left fans awestruck, making it difficult to imagine what his music would progress to next.

Letur Lefr's style is perhaps, best described by John himself, as he stated on his personal website; "I consider my music to be Progressive Synth Pop, which says nothing about what it sounds like, but does describe my basic approach. I combine aspects of many styles of music and create my own musical forms by way of electronic instruments." Upon listening to the EP, it becomes apparent that this is the best description for its sound however for the sake of breaking it down to it's individual styles and references, the EP appears to include musical styles from rock, electronic, hip-hop, rap, dance, psychedelic and even classical feels. Just to name a few. John attributes some of his influences and direction to the use of LSD stating, "In summary, Acid served as a good starting point for me, very gradually leading me to be able to combine whatever styles of music I want, as a one man band." Understandably, this is a big part of is psychedelic and spiritual influences on his music, however, it would be foolish to think that it is the sole cause.

In summary, Letur Lefr is a beautiful and moving piece of modern musical art, the forward progression of the soul of the Chili Peppers. John's fans will now be anticipating the release of PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone which is more than likely to be the next natural progression in John's music. It feels appropriate to leave you know with a quote from the man himself.

"The imagination is the most real world that we know because we each know it first hand." John Frusciante