Lotuspool Records gives ‘90s Lawrence indie-rockers Zoom a repackage

We last caught up with Chris Garibaldi three years ago, back when Lotuspool, the label he cofounded in Lawrence in 1992, was in the midst of a revival. After releasing beloved indie records by acts like the Weightmen, Bully Pulpit, Panel Donor, and Zoom, Lotuspool went on a decade-plus hiatus starting around 2000. By 2015, though, Garibaldi was working on some new releases, including Heidi Lynne Gluck’s debut LP.

So when I visited him last month at his Parkville home — the basement of which houses an impressive, multi-room recording studio he built two years ago — I was surprised when one of the first things he revealed to me was that, just a year ago, he’d planned to shut the label down again.

The thought came to Garibaldi last October, when Lotuspool was celebrating its 25th anniversary with two nights of shows at the Replay Lounge featuring nearly a dozen Lotuspool acts.

“I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is a great way to end the label. I’m gonna shut the label down after this big party, and we’re all gonna be happy,’” Garibaldi recalls. Go out with a bang.

Not long after the party, though, he was approached by Mark Henning, a longtime friend and a member of Lawrence rock band Zoom. Lotuspool had recently reissued an album by Poster Children that Henning dug. He wanted Lotuspool to give Zoom’s sophomore album, Helium Octipede (released the first time around by Tim/Kerr Records in 1993) and Rockin’ In Rio (an early cassette that had never seen a mass release) a similar treatment.

Zoom never built up a significant national following during its original run, but a few decades later, it’s clear that the band was carving out an interesting space inside the larger framework of ‘90s indie rock. Its two LPs take cues from contemporaries like Slint and Hum — lots of heavy, anxious guitar work and an overall sense of friction — and Fugazi’s tuneful, driving grooves. (Forums on the website of Steve Albini’s iconic Chicago recording studio Electrical Audio feature praise for Zoom from several people involved with the studio; Albini himself even came out to one of Zoom’s reunion shows half a decade ago.) Zoom’s aesthetic is also detectable in the late-90s local acts that followed it, like Shiner and Giants Chair.

Garibaldi thought it over and concluded Henning’s request was one he couldn’t refuse. And now, a year later, we have the first-ever vinyl release of Helium Octipede, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. It looks great: the updated jacket design is done in the style of the flashy, vintage European pressings that American rock albums would often receive back in the day. Garibaldi’s bandmate from Suneaters, Steve Hartley, wrote the copy for the back of the jacket in English before Garibaldi took it to Parkville’s French bistro, Café des Amis, where an employee and a French poetry professor translated it. A tongue-in-cheek stipulation from the band also required Lotuspool to state that the lost master tapes for the album had recently been discovered by a hiker in the Pyrenees.

In keeping with this slightly bizarre streak, Rockin’ In Rio — Zoom’s more melodic debut EP — is being released on limited edition 8-track tapes. Garibaldi had mentioned to someone at his day job that he runs a label in his spare time. The coworker mentioned that their friend runs the only remaining 8-track manufacturer in the United States.

“It’s an interesting deal,” Garibaldi says. “They make them by hand, so they find the shells, they clean them, they record your stuff on a clean piece of tape, and then they reel it, put it in the shell, and tape your artwork onto it.” (Rio comes with a download code, in the likely event you do not own an 8-track player.)

Might we see Zoom’s self-titled debut LP released on vinyl sometime soon as well?

“Maybe — we’re seriously considering it,” Garibaldi says. He thinks there are exceptional vocal performances on the LP, but, “when they mixed that record, it was at a time where you’d always bury the vocals, so we’ve been talking about definitely remastering it, and maybe doing a bit of remixing to bring out the vocals.”

Until a decision is reached on that front, Garibaldi is staying busy, working on a new batch of releases from other bands, as well as the production of a new Suneaters album at his home studio. He’s surprisingly optimistic about a future resurgence in support for indie rock labels like his. While it’s unlikely that the genre will ever see a boom like it did in the days of Nirvana, he thinks that music fans will eventually sour on the idea of major labels and corporate streaming giants spoon-feeding them and set out in search of something fresh.

“You can hear when they’re trying to sell you crap,” Garibaldi says. “I just can’t wait for the revolution to come.”

♦

Zoom’s Helium Octipede and Rockin’ In Rio are available to stream and purchase now at ZoomLotuspool.Bandcamp.com.