Audiopile Review: One of last year’s best kept secrets was Hysterical Love Project’s debut release, Lashes, a CD-only release that was issued in a micro-pressing of 50 copies. Finally making it to vinyl courtesy of the Motion Ward imprint, a label better known as an outpost for “ambient underground” artists like Ulla, Pontiac Streator and Ultrafog, the Melbourne-based duo and their inspired swing at fusing 4AD-style atmospheric dream-pop with subterranean trip-hop might seem like an odd fit for the label. But the loosely interconnected 3XL/West Mineral/Motion Ward scene have been known to dip their cups into these same deep pools too, they’ve just rarely added a front-facing vocalist to the mix. That connection can be heard right from the outset, “Miracle-mouthed” opens with a narcotic break submerged in billowing tones and drifting guitar, tapping into a sound not far from Naemi’s very recent album of left field ambient-pop on 3XL. Vocalist Brooklyn Mellar’s heavy-lidded style, dripping with a low-lit sensuality, is where HLP stake their emotive core. Her numb lipped delivery of barely perceptible lyrics nod toward Elisabeth Fraser’s textural vocals with Cocteau Twins, though it’s hard not to hear a bit of Tracey Thorn’s influence poking through here too. Very similar in tone to last year’s breakthrough hit from a.s.o., Hysterical Love Project have a similar knack for stoking the nostalgia of hardened old-timers while offering a fresh perspective on the classics for the incoming generation. A phenomenal debut album.

“Hysterical Love Project’s modern dreampop classic finally comes to vinyl after appearing on numerous EOY lists in 2023, gliding with a shimmer of trip hop and shoegaze downstrokes you should consider essential listening if yr into a.s.o.’s standout debut, or classics from HTRK, Dubstar, Ulla.

Pairing Kiwi producer Ike Zwanikken with vocalist Brooklyn Mellar, Hysterical Love Project muddle the foggy memory banks of early ‘90s Trip Hop with prompts from Balearic downbeats and canny production techniques that lend it a patina of micro-dosed psychedelic sensuality.

Perfectly strung out on a late night tip, it flows from the bed-ways lullaby pop and back-combed partials of ‘Miracle-Mouthed’ to the beautifully out-of-reach gauze of ‘Cement’ via delectable highlights of ‘90s trip-pop in the slow-motion acidic lather and forlorn vox of ‘Ionian Sea’, and dreamily headlong wind-tunnel motion of ‘Boyracer’. ‘Come 2 Me, My Baby’ and ’Sever/Strike’ are unmistakably redolent of HTRK, while the weightless strum of ‘Lavender’ demonstrates just how completely they can transfix without the beats.” -Boomkat