When Lush called it quits after a brief but successful 2015-16 reunion, the big question was: Would vocalist/guitarist Miki Berenyi keep playing music? (She left music almost completely after Lush drummer Chris Acland’s unexpected suicide in 1997.)
The answer arrived late in September 2018, when the following message appeared on Lush’s Instagram page: “Miki has a new band! Follow @piroshkaband on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!”
The band’s first official Tweet included a photo of 4 familiar faces (provided one is well-versed in the history of 4AD, shoegaze and Britpop) and the text, “Welcome to Piroshka — Mick, Moose, Miki and Justin. We’ve all been in bands before, y’know.” (Roll call: Mick Conroy from Modern English, one of the first bands on Lush’s label 4AD — and a great friend of Acland’s; Moose, aka KJ McKillop from jagged psych-melancholists Moose; and Elastica drummer Justin Welch, who played drums for Lush’s reunion EP and gigs.)
But don’t call them a supergroup. And don’t pull the inevitable band algebra to try to figure out the resulting sound — you know, “Piroshka equals Band X + Band Y squared – the square root of P…” Given the weight of their collective histories, the new band seems determined to keep the music relaxed, informal and not weighed down by previous critical responses.
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