Having survived the departure of co-frontman John Davis and dismissal from Interscope Records, the Folk Implosion will return to the studio in August to record a follow-up to 1999's One Part Lullaby. Singer-songwriter Lou Barlow -- who founded the band with Davis in 1994 -- says the new material, which for the first time he wrote entirely solo, represents a "radical departure" from the slick indie-electronica of the band's best-known songs, like "Natural One" -- an alternative-radio hit from the 1994 movie Kids.

"The songs that we've played we've done as a three-piece power trio," Barlow says. "They're like six minutes long, and one song in particular is Black Sabbath-influenced more than anything I ever done, including with Sebadoh." Interscope, he says, was initially open to the new direction, but changed its stance halfway through the writing process. "They said, 'That's fine, great, we'll give you more money. And then the guy who signed us had left the label, and they were going through a time when they were dropping a bunch of bands."

The band -- which now includes drummer Russ Pollard (Barlow's partner in Sebadoh) and guitarist Imaad Wasif -- is talking with IMusic, an arm of ArtistDirect, about a one-disc deal, and has booked studio time for next month. "They'd put the record out anytime we want to after it's done," Barlow says, suggesting that an early 2003 release is likely. "They're doing amazing one-record deals with a bunch bands right now. They pitched an idea to us, and it sounds good."

The current version of Folk Implosion might benefit from timely exposure on the big screen as much as the old one did: Barlow and company play British rockers in the upcoming movie Laurel Canyon, which stars Kate Beckinsale and Frances McDormand, though they didn't write any music for the film. "Right away for this project I could tell that the focus of the movie was really 'Sparklehorse songs,'" Barlow says. "I just wasn't inspired to write for the movie. Anyway, the band is supposed to be this British band, in the vein of Radiohead or Coldplay, and I just don't write anything like that."

A parallel reunion of Sebadoh, whose last album The Sebadoh also came out in 1999, isn't likely, thanks to guitarist Jason Lowenstein's remoteness from Barlow and Pollard. "Jason's moved from Kentucky to Brooklyn to Portland and then back to Kentucky," Barlow says, "and he's recording his own stuff. We can't even really afford to stay in touch as a band. We used to fly out and rent a cabin for two weeks and stuff like that, but that's just not possible anymore, financially."

Barlow, who moved to L.A. from his adopted hometown of Boston in 1999, ended an uncharacteristic lull in his solo career this spring with the release of Free Sentridoh Songs from Loobiecore. The home-recorded, self-released set is a return to the moody lo-fi aesthetic he helped popularize in the late Eighties and early Nineties, and as such could be another sign of a new beginning for the indie pioneer. "I sent a copy to my father, and it flipped him out," he says. "I guess to follow up something like One Part Lullaby, which was the most lush, controlled record I've ever done, with stuff that is basically live recordings of pretty brutal stuff . . . I don't know."

"People tend to draw simple pictures," Barlow continues. "They take what you give them and draw simplistic conclusions. They listen to that record and they're like, 'Something's really wrong with this guy.'"

On the contrary, Barlow says, he's enjoying music now more than he has in "five or six years," and he'll continue to record songs at home and post them on his Web site, www.loobiecore.com, and assemble them on Sentridoh records. "I'm going through kind of an amazing time right now, things are really coming together and I've got a lot of control over what's going on. The last Loobiecore record was a mix of songs -- some ten years old and some I wrote two weeks before I put it out. So I'd like to do something reflective of what I'm recording now."

AUGUSTIN SEDGEWICK
(July 8, 2002)