Area - White Canvas New Hope

Formed in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, Area borrowed the ethereal dream-pop sound of Britain's 4AD label while adding their own distinctively Midwestern touches, most notably the gentle vocals of frontwoman Lynn Canfield. Founded in 1986, the group's core included Canfield, guitarist Henry Frayne and multi-instrumentalist Steve Jones; they debuted later that year with White Canvas New Hope. Originally released in 1986 on cassette on Office Records of Champaign, Illinois the first two tracks were the first ever recorded by Area and appeared on an Office Records compilation initially. Over the course of the album, you can hear Area coming of age, setting the stage for their brilliant future development. You may be inclined to nod your head gently to this lighter-than-helium dream pop, with a bit too much of a New Age feel to it. It actually takes quite a bit of balls to play music this ethereal and wistful; it practically makes Slowdive sound like a bruising pub-rock band.

Area - Radio Caroline

In the late 1980s, Urbana-Champaign trio Area crafted glistening goth-tinged pop for legendary label Projekt; in retrospect, the work of vocalist Lynn Canfield and multi-instrumentalists Henry Frayne and Steve Jones seems like an obvious precursor to contemporary dream pop and shoegaze. (The members of Area have also performed in the Moon Seven Times and the Arms of Someone New, among other groups.) Formed in 1986 in Champaign-Urbana, IL, Area was an enigmatic dream pop trio quickly hailed as the Midwest’s answer to England’s 4AD Records. On their second release and first vinyl LP, they merged the seductive, breathy voice and lyrics of Lynn Canfield with the radiant guitar and delicate synth inventions of Henry Frayne and Steve Jones. Finding their musical footing on RADIO CAROLINE, Area explored gentle spirals of emotive, fragile moods at once sad and beautiful. “They're almost all very personal lyrics,” noted Lynn Canfield in a 1987 interview with Italy’s Night Circle fanzine. “I'm talking about facts that happen to me on a daily basis, but it's never planned, it's not a conscious thing. The surest — and for me the only — way to write is to write what is definitely in you." Ranging from the straight-ahead rock of "Sweet Revenge" to the wistfulness and wintery "After the End" and “Crystal,” the variety of styles fits nicely with the late-80s music of the Cocteau Twins, Cowboy Junkies, Lanterna, Low, and Durutti Column.
Lynn reflects on the album & era:
Winding up to summer of 2023, Steve and Henry and I are in touch more often, removing thistle from a prairie and hanging out in coffee shops. It's exactly like 1987 and nothing like it. It's been fun to anticipate the release of Radio Caroline, to reminisce and threaten each other with new songs. Then when I saw where "Head Above Water" landed in Cruel Summer, I was shocked to learn my lyrics weren't opaque at all: those kids are at a party negotiating some serious tension, just like my pals and I had been doing in the red room. In other good news 35 years later, the folks in that song are among my best friends; we fell apart for a second but came back together for some major life changes and never fell apart again. Listening to Area takes me straight into the scenes behind the words and then into what unfolded from there, and it can be weird to realize them coming true. How would a person even know it if they'd been time-traveling?

Area - The Perfect Dream

Area were a band musically that were right where they should have been for their time, circa ‘88. This is very 4AD sounding in the sense of Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, not forgetting Roxy Music and Leonard Cohen. The music is an exquisite combination of ambient guitar and synth noodlings over drum machine darkwave and dream pop, all hailing from Champaign in downstate Illinois. The dark, cathedral ambience and ethereal vocals of Lynn Canfield adds an air of mystery to the sound. Effortlessly seductive, reducing odd syllables to a whisper, a sense of calm weeping from every note in spite of the articulation of loss and loneliness, confusion and incomprehension, fears and pains, yearnings and soft burnings over ghostly guitars and scarce drum beats. Loaded with the sort of melancholia that you get when you write rather deep and introspective songs, this stuff still holds up, which is partially due to the fact that the gloom and doom seems real rather than painted on.

The highlight here with an opening thunder clap adding atmosphere is "With Louise" which is actually a rehash, adapting a song from keyboard/percussionist Steve Jones' earlier band, The Arms of Someone New, but the only difference being was the lack of a decent vocalist, plainly remedied here. Other tunes replicate a similar sound, while some, like "Sympathy," are more like straight ballads, Canfield's hushed croon with only the lightest instrumental accompaniment. As on their other albums, Area occasionally veer into more upbeat electro-pop ("Why Should I Worry"), falling somewhere between Gary Numan and the Cure, but this is largely a sombre affair best saved for sleepy, foggy mornings. The album is a triumph of minimalism, dreamscapes gently stirred to pale life through the gentle fingering of fretboards and keyboards.