Cooper Gillespie (vocals, guitar, bass) and Greg Gordon (drums, sequences) of LANDROID are veteran performers that have traveled the world as professional musicians. Now they live in the California town of Landers. Population: 2,632.

The music that Gillespie and Gordon are making as LANDROID, so named as a reference to their new home, is as vast as the environment in which it was created. Following years of playing variations on the Los Angeles-based punk and rock hybrid, Gillespie and Gordon settled in a desert land and became a desert band. The duo’s debut album Imperial Dunes arrived on Sept. 13th via their own Mojave Beach Records label.

LANDROID’s “Recommended If You Like” is more like a “Recommended If You’ve Lived.” It’s a list of inspirations and influences that read like whole lifestyles unto themselves.

Imperial Dunes sounds just like ‘em:

David Lynch, David Bowie, outer space, X, Cocteau Twins, William Blake, Blade Runner, Led Zeppelin, Buddy Rich, scuba diving, Portishead, Pink Floyd, Angela Carter, the ocean.

Even a pair of cover tunes, Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” (a cover of a cover: “We were inspired by the pathos of Billy Swann’s 1975 version”) and Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça Plane Pour Moi,” could be mistaken for originals if the lyrics didn’t give them away.

The album’s originals, especially first single and music video “Yellow Sea,” prove the concept. Lush, but not lost in itself, the song and its visual representation are otherworldly and familiar at the same time.

“Yellow Sea” is a meditation on the hereafter,” Gillespie states. “The video depicts a journey through a portal to the afterlife, and we see that it’s not so scary after the initial shock. There’s actually a lot of wonder and joy on the other side.”

Back in the reality of his current “this side” life in small-town Landers, Gordon notes, “Oftentimes, there are more dogs than people in the bars.”

LANDROID recognizes the wonder and joy on this side, too.