There’s something about the somewhat punk, lo-fi nature in which this labour of love from documentary filmmaker Jörg Steineck is presented that just perfectly captures the whole vibe and attitude of the desert rock scene he so obviously loves.
With stories coming straight from the likes of Brant Bjork, Josh Homme, Sean Wheeler, Mario Lalli and Scott Reeder, Steineck keeps it loose and somewhat trippy as he lets the characters and bands that were there at the burgeoning of the Palm Desert rock scene do the talking. For his part, he lays in some superb, and by all accounts hard-found, archive footage that works brilliantly to put you right there at the garage gigs, the house parties and the drink and drug-fuelled desert parties as he delves into the early origins of the scene formed of a cross-pollinating mix of punk, metal, alt-rock, psychedelic influenced kids located around the isolated suburban desert areas of the Coachella Valley in California. Lo Sound Desert may have been some 10 years in the making, but this love letter documentary is absolutely worth every minute of the wait and may just be as definitive a look at the subject as it gets.
