Jonothan Edmonds: vocals
Angela Clark: keyboards
Jim McDonald: bass, guitars and backing vocals
Tim Spelman: keyboards and drum machine
Ben Bourke: keyboards

Recorded by Marcus Barczak, North Fitzroy, February 2003. Mixed and produced by Marcus Barczak and Lacto-Ovo, Cyberspace, July 2020.

Following the recent exhumation of Lacto-Ovo's two albums Shoes & You (2000) and Tsunami Pop (2001) and subsequent relaunch into the digital realm, Lost And Lonesome are now pleased to announce the release of 'City Lights', the first of two unreleased songs recorded prior to the band's break-up in 2003.

Soon after the release of Tsunami Pop in 2001, the Melbourne-based Lacto-Ovo expanded their line-up, adding Ben Bourke who swapped between bass and keyboards duties. This allowed the country-shoegaze-Americana-synth-Arabian-surf-lounge-noisepop band even more flexibility for instrument swapping amongst members.

Lacto-Ovo put together a live set with a stage set-up that consisted of six keyboards, two guitars, a drum machine, drums, a left and right-handed bass and all five members on vocals. Suffice it to say, music engineers absolutely hated mixing Lacto-Ovo live.

Of particular note was the choice to place drummer Jono Edmonds on vocals, as a "front-man"... at first, because they had a drum machine on two tracks, they had to give him something to do.

Rather than feel dejected and sorry for himself Jono saw his new role as a significant promotion and took the bull by the horns, wearing skimpy tank tops to boot, and belted out 80s style crooning with much enthusiasm. The stage set-up was perhaps a sign that Lacto-Ovo was literally about to explode off the stage.

With a desire to explore other sounds(!), Lacto-Ovo members all went their separate ways in 2003, though band members variously ended up playing together in City City City, Mid-State Orange, Edible Pet, Capgras Family and Fire to the Stars.

Unfortunately, songs from Lacto-Ovo’s anticipated third album never saw the light of day...

Until now.

Two songs from this period had been tracked by producer Marcus Barczak, but never mixed down. Fast forward to 2020: band member Jim McDonald, whilst looking for gardening gloves in his shed, found rough mixes of two songs on a very scratched up CD.

Jim and Ange spoke to their old buddy Marcus who went about re-installing Windows Medieval (or whatever it was called in 2003). He soon discovered mountains of recorded tracks for both songs long-forgotten, including whisper tracks, multiple keyboards and ridiculous-sounding synth-guitars and loads and loads of vocals, immortalising Jono as "front-man".

Ange, Marcus and Jim re-mixed all the original tracks, got the seal of approval from Tim and Jono, and hey presto!

The first of these two new/old songs to resurface is 'City Lights' – an amalgam of New Order, Simple Minds and OMD with Jono providing what is probably close to the best vocal performance in the band’s history. Peter Hook styled bass playing, glorious Oberheim keys from Ben Bourke and a tasteful layering of multiple keyboard and guitar parts from the band’s nucleus.

Lacto-Ovo are absolutely stoked to finally release these tracks which are seventeen years in the making. We hope you enjoy them as much as the band did finishing them.