Division of Laura Lee

Lovitt released Division's compilation of back-catalog releases in 2003. It is a release that is an expose into Division of Laura Lee's early years that reveals a collection of rougher, tumultuous songs earnestly performed by an eager, young band. With choppy and discordant hooks, the foursome conjures up pieces that are riveting, electrifying, and unsettling. Division of Laura Lee's compelling 97-99 candidly reveals how one of today's up-and-coming bands started off so auspiciously and fiercely.

How it all happened? by Shelby Cinca (Lovitt comrade).

It was somewhere around end of 1996 that HaëØ?Nkan called me for the first time in regards to putting out a live Frodus CD in Europe. He heard about my old band when his friend Daniel, also from the same town of VaëØ?Nnersborg, Sweden came to the US and saw one of our shows at the office of Fort Reno Park in DC. The first thing he said to me was "speaking in English makes my tongue dry" and I immediately felt that it would be a long-lasting friendship. In May 1997, I finally met him in person when we arrived to tour Europe for the first time. Meeting him and his friends Per and Jonas (who would eventually come to form Division Of Laura Lee in the forthcoming years) gave me a sense of the supportive music community in DC. Oddly enough, in small-town VaëØ?Nnersborg, Sweden a scene was growing influenced by the same ethic and sound that Lovitt Records was born out of. Local kids were being influenced by the DIY ethics that HaëØ?Nkan and his buddies started to take on: making their own bands and releasing their own music. It wasn't fashion-punk, but more so something of passion and true independence... a spit in the face of calculated culture and the continuation of what labels like Dischord paved the way for.

So years later, it only makes sense that Lovitt releases a retrospective of those formative years of Division Of Laura Lee. A heavily DC influenced tour de force of sweaty passion-filled post-punk brought together by the bonds of friendship and shared ethics.

May the rock n' roll war live on ... the fight never ends.

Shelby Cinca

Washington, DC

2003

(Division Of Laura Lee is currently on Epitaph Records in the USA and Burning Heart in Europe).