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Forty years after their formation, no music sounds quite like Hugo Largo. Their hushed, majestic atmosphere—which veers toward ambient dream-pop but emerged from the noisy No Wave scene of 1980s New York—is the result of open-ended exploration and pure vision, an embrace of mystery and a refusal to compromise. Even the basic components of the band—two bassists (Tim Sommer and Adam Peacock), a violinist (Hahn Rowe), and a one-of-a-kind powerhouse vocalist (Mimi Goese)—set them apart from any peers or contemporaries. “The very best reason to form a band,” Sommer reflects, “is because you're looking through your music collection and you can't find what you want to hear.” With Huge, Large and Electric: Hugo Largo 1984-1991, a new box set via Missing Piece Records—the label run by Michael Krumper, who first released Hugo Largo’s music in the 1980s—their entire catalog is finally back in print and on streaming for the very first time.
With only two albums to their name, Hugo Largo have always left their legacy in the hands of their fiercely devoted audience. “When somebody’s walking toward me and they just have this tilt in their head… I know they’re a Hugo Largo fan,” vocalist Mimi Goese says with a laugh. During the band’s brief run between 1984 and 1991, their legend spread via their iconic live shows—events that would spotlight Goese’s bewilderingly charismatic presence as a
front-person and performance artist—and their exquisite studio work: 1988’s Drum, produced by early acolyte Michael Stipe, and 1989’s more fleshed-out Mettle, released on Brian Eno’s label Opal. Accompanying these records in the box set is a new compilation of revelatory live and unreleased material, spanning formative early work to their final compositions as a band. Additionally, the set includes fascinating essays from Stipe, Eno, and Sommer.
According to Hugo Largo, their identity was apparent right from the jump. Sommer formed the group with original bassist Greg Letson, whom he met while performing alongside avant garde guitarist Glenn Branca. They soon enlisted Goese, who had been involved mostly in dance and choreography in the city. “She thought of singing and melody as carving space with lines,” Rowe recalls of her earliest work with the band. “It was quite natural for her.” Originally the group’s sound person, Rowe soon found his place as their violinist and in-house producer. When Letson was replaced by Adam Peacock, they settled into their definitive lineup, documented here across all stages of their career.
Together, they pursued an aesthetic that Sommer describes as “maximum minimalism,” allowing the drone of the duel basses to create a deep, cavernous space for Goese and Howe to navigate with their higher frequencies. With only fleeting appearances from drums and guitars, this combination set them apart from nearly every act in New York. “I always thought we were a rock band,” Sommer explains. “Even in our quietness, we were an extreme band.” In an upbeat composition like Drum’s “Second Skin,” as close as Hugo Largo have to an anthem, Goese’s voice rises from the mix with an intensity that feels almost punk. In “Turtle Song,” the opening track and lead single from Mettle, Goese follows the verse-chorus structure of pop music, and yet her lyrics resist any sense of narrative. (“I remember writing ‘Turtle Song’ at 10th St.,” recalls Peacock. “Possibly the first thing I wrote on my own with some sort of little cassette recorder to work out the two parts. Like it was yesterday…”)
With a graceful sound that drew comparisons to the otherworldly landscapes of Cocteau Twins and the primal sketches of Young Marble Giants, Hugo Largo were critically acclaimed
(particularly by the UK music press) but perhaps too elusive to catch on with the mainstream. This was partially by design. “I love the mystery of not knowing where something comes from,” Goese says of her writing practice, a sentiment echoed by her bandmates. “That’s really the gift of Hugo Largo,” Sommer adds. “This combination of us as instrumentalists wanting to communicate something without being literal, and Mimi doing the same with her lyrics and vocals.” Consider “Martha,” a swooning highlight from Mettle that Sommer describes as “more an atmosphere than a song.” There is a sense of heartbreak in its slow-burning melody, a quiet ache to Rowe’s violin accompaniment, glowing in the mix like sunlight through closed blinds. This was music intended to speak directly to only those who were listening most closely, art that triggered an emotional response from its audience, asking you to lean in and collaborate in its atmosphere.
After the intensive recording of Mettle and its resulting tour, Hugo Largo reached a crossroads. Not everyone was on the same page about the band’s future, and eventually they decided to go their separate ways. “I just wanted to make music that felt fresh and not encumbered with the whole mechanism around the actual creation of it,” Rowe reflects on the split. “It’s probably a byproduct of our late stage capitalism but this whole idea of having to produce a product to be consumed, and all the energy put into things that felt extraneous… I think it kind of wore on us.”
In the decades following their split, the members each pursued their own projects and Sommer launched a successful career in the music industry. (In 2022, he published a book about his time working at Atlantic Records, where he discovered and signed Hootie & the Blowfish.) Meanwhile, the legend of Hugo Largo spread through new generations via file-sharing and word-of-mouth: an afterlife that Sommer predicted even while they were an active band: “I always said that we were ahead of our time,” he muses today. This is partially why the recordings across this box set feels not only welcome but also newly essential: Perhaps the world has finally caught up with Hugo Largo.
No song encapsulates this enduring mystery better than “Eureka,” the resplendent centerpiece of Drum. While their idiosyncratic texture and firm alignment with the avant-garde have always placed Hugo Largo as an experimental act, “Eureka” shows how tender, how immediate, and how emotionally evocative their music has always been. Featuring ecstatic harmonies from Michael Stipe, the song conjures an emotional experience that still feels visceral. Speaking with the band now, no member can say exactly what the song is about, or which member first came up with the idea. But everyone can recall the day they recorded it: wandering into the backyard outside Stipe’s home in Georgia, taking in the country scenery, seeing the sky after a storm, a rainbow spreading across the sky with not a single cloud to block their sight. “How can something be so incredibly beautiful?” Goese asks, looking back with awe. “That’s what I wish on people when I wish them well: a moment of transcendence.” Consider the music of Hugo Largo this moment prolonged: a brief flicker of magic caught on tape, its future boundless and wild and growing more resonant with each passing year.