Listen to a Clip From Lift to Experience’s Remastered Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads

The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads’ remaster will be released this fall.
Lift to Experience
(Breanne Trammell)

Back in March, Texas psych-rock trio Lift to Experience announced that they were reuniting to play at Guy Garvey’s Meltdown festival in June. At the same time, it was announced that Lift to Experience’s sole album, 2001’s The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, would be remastered and reissued by Mute Records later this year to celebrate its 15th anniversary.

The band has returned to the studio where the album was originally recorded, and in the words of frontman Josh T. Pearson, they’ve been “remixing the album the way it should have been mixed originally.” He continues: “It’s good to have our balls back after years spent being castrated. Excited for those who never got to experience the band live to hear a more accurate representation of what we sounded like then.”

You can hear an example of the band’s efforts in this clip from “The Ground So Soft.”

Compare this to the album version, and the difference is pretty marked — it almost feels like you’re listening to an entirely different band. The new version is rougher and less polished, with Pearson’s vocals more pronounced. The “barbershop quartet” segment is especially different; Pearson’s harmonies have been given a more spectral feel while the music rumbles in the background. (For various reasons, I’m reminded of the rawer direction that Sigur Rós took on Kveikur.)

Finally, in preparation for their Meltdown festival performance, Lift to Experience will be playing several “warm-up” shows in Texas.

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