New Music: The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust

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mojo-photo-raveonettes.jpgWhat to make of a Danish duo who seem obsessed with vintage American rock but can’t help filtering it through a Jesus and Mary Chain fuzzbox? Well, with a name like “The Raveonettes,” they’re wearing their influences on their sleeves, and they’ve often been written off as a retro novelty act. But similarly to better-known male-female duo The White Stripes, the band’s self-imposed stylistic restrictions often allow them to soar.

Lust Lust Lust is their fourth album in five years, and their first not to feature a cover that evokes a cheesy classic movie poster. Instead, it’s somewhat minimalist, and that’s a hint to what’s inside: a more stripped-down, back-to-basics Raveonettes, often utilizing synthesizer tones in the foreground or Primal Scream-style drum machines. “Dead Sound” kicks off as a major-key fuzz-fest, until the guitars fall away to reveal twinkling bells. It’s all in a major key, but still evokes a creepy, David Lynch-style surrealism.

The Raveonettes have always had a little trouble with albums getting “same-y,” although it’s not like they’re not aware of it: their first two albums proudly announced that all the songs were in B-flat major. They’re not joking, and three or four tracks here almost seem like slight revisions of each other. If you’re not into this crazy thing they’re doing, you might be baffled and bored. But, like a Lynch movie, if you adjust to the (admittedly dark and monochromatic) world view, you’ll be in for moments of heart-stopping beauty, like a guitar line in “Hallucinations” that suddenly ascends an octave for a stirring coda. Like Nick Cave or Tom Waits, the band have chosen a path that’s strangely out of time and stuck with it; they may seem a little strange, but that’s because they are.

Lust Lust Lust has been out in the UK since November but gets a US release on Vice records on February 19th.

Video: Raveonettes “Dead Sound”

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“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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