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Praise for Healing Waters (2009)
"In the ongoing, lopsided battle between Washington, D.C.'s and New York City’s respective music scenes (a battle the latter isn't even aware exists), the District has recently won a rare victory: Earlier this summer, Brooklyn’s Andrew Spencer Goldman—the mastermind behind one-man-band Fulton Lights—relocated to the D.C. area...
Imagine if Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock produced a few songs on Beck’s Sea Change and then Tom Waits and Brian Eno stepped in to add some texture—and it all worked. Healing Waters is a six-song landscape of ambience, hollow spaces, and ghostly vocals...." --The Onion AV Club
**
"A sea-change, a vaulting forward in the songwriting of Andrew Spencer Goldman. He has been a master of sound for as long as I have been listening, but on Healing Waters the songs-as-songs have more substance. These are not in any way "soundscapes" - they are tunes. In places they recall the Flaming Lips' basement anthems, or Stars' bedroom warnings. But these are just touchstones; "Monsters We've Built" is so much noisier than that. There's the crash of demolition, the shriek of tearing metal, an apocalyptic roar. The sound of something ripping through its old skin and taking a deep, deep breath. (Also, he covers David Byrne's "Glass, Concrete and Stone"!)"--Said the Gramophone
*****
Praise for The Way We Ride (2008)
"...One realizes that the unseated sounds of suspicion and violence can sound the same as uninhibited revelry, and are here more deeply embedded in the sinewy recesses of Fulton Lights’ once pristine sound. Goldman didn’t allow himself to get in the way of a process that is often essentially messy. In surrendering himself to something unbolted he’s produced something far more revelatory than his debut, which sounded at times like a statement record, with all of the warily placed messaging that that implies. The sloppy drums and bubbling horns to end “I Love Your Point of View,” and the strange slowing in “The Way We Ride” and “Everybody’s Running from Something” betrays a far more organic process, and given that the tendency is for writers to ladle follow-ups with gratuitously amassed instrumental variations on the same rote arrangements, this supposed step backwards is also exactly the right step to take."--Coke Machine Glow
**
"Fulton Lights’ new album The Way We Ride is the soundtrack to that moment when you’re standing at the airport wondering what the fuck to do next. It may take you a while to get under its spell, but if you’ve got the patience to just give it some time, then it will instantly remind you of every exciting thing that’s happened in your life while at the same time it’ll make you eager to experience more. It’s a true, honest, compelling and rock solid piece of work that continues to reward you with each and every listen.
It’s not the soundtrack to a hot date, it’s the soundtrack you have in your head as you make your way to the bar or restaurant or wherever you’ve arranged to meet. It’s the sound of the city, and it’s full of nerves, excitement, fear, apprehension and, ultimately, hope and confidence. This is The Way We Ride and it should be the way we all travel.--Incendiary Magazine
**
"Yes, technology is stealing our souls; but it's making it easier than ever to hear incredible new music. Like Fulton Lights. Andrew Spencer Goldman writes, records, and releases his own music. His new album, The Way We Ride, is available as a pay-what-you-want download - and it's fantastic.
...The Way We Ride is an ambitious, fully-realised album; with Stones Throw hip-hop swagger, Ennio Morricone epic arrangements, experimental folk a la Joan of Arc, and even space country.
It's a dramatic departure from the Fulton Lights debut and Andrew's other work (Maestro Echoplex, John Guilt). ...His unique, genre-defying album also boasts one of the freshest, funnest songs I've heard in ages - the low-fi hip-hop bravado High Plains Drifter tale, 'Everybody's Running from Something'. Dude. Thank God for the computers."--Three Thousand (Australia)
**
Praise for the debut album (2007)
"Fulton Lights' debut is a cycle of songs that are deceptively sweet-edged, but indelibly tough. They echo through the mind with a nostalgia that refuses to completely commit to the way we live." --John Szwed, author of biographies on Miles Davis and Sun Ra and the winner of the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Liner Notes (a book that came with the Jelly Roll Morton Anthology)
**
(From Spin's "Hey, This is Awesome")"The man behind Fulton Lights, Brooklyn's Andrew Spencer Goldman, has sparked a smoldering slow-burner for his single, 'Fire In The Palm Of My Hand.' ...The smoky tune drifts on hushed vocals and a plaintive, pretty piano. It's a calm cocoon of a song, but Goldman makes sure that his nuanced debut doesn't become complacent by inviting some members of the boisterous underground rap group Dälek (among others) to help weave in such unlikely elements as minimalist hip-hop beats, an organ, and a vibraphone with more traditional guitar and piano."--Spin
**
"Looped piano notes and a dusty trip-hop beat cast an unsettling spell in this cut from Brooklyn artist Andrew Spencer Goldman's debut as Fulton Lights... Underground maestro Oktopus (one-half of Dälek) co-produced the track (his fingerprints are all over those dissonant murmurs in the background), but credit Goldman's ghostly vocals and politically provocative lyrics for giving this hazy track a subtle power."--Entertainment Weekly
**
"...This self-titled Brooklyn song cycle is a 10-track love letter to New York City's greatest borough. Goldman, an indie singer-songwriter who's recorded under a variety of guises including Maestro Echoplex and John Guilt, has a knack for melody; his hushed, impressionistic musings drift by in a slow dazzle of muted strings, keyboards and environmental ambience, courtesy of underground hip-hoppers dälek. It's as if a 25-year -old Neil Young was beamed down to a stoop in Bed-Stuy. But in contrast to the borough's fuggedaboutit reputation, there are no harsh edges here. Rather, Fulton Lightscaptures the city on the graveyard shift--coughing, sputtering, wheezing--both beautiful and vaguely threatening. And despite the downtempo moodiness and bittersweet nostalgia, Goldman's overall outlook retains a gentle optimism. And that takes chutzpah. Here's hoping he doesn't move to Queens."--Harp
**
(3.5 stars)"...A suite of beautiful, ghostly songs in which acoustic pianos and string samples float over muted hip-hop beats as Goldman's soulful, whispery tenor shares tales of life in the city of New York. ...The tempos are glacial, the keyboard-based arrangements poking along to beats so slow they can be counted. Goldman is fond of swelling organ notes and softly played acoustic and electric piano chords, with strings adding accents here and there. His near-falsetto, near-whispered voice mutters lyrics largely concerned with urban alienation and philosophical ruminations. Actually, he shares many of his interests -- time and breathing, for example -- with Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon."--All Music Guide
**
(Top of the Blogs)"...A carefully pulsing electronic folk album...Beautiful music for aghast city dwellers...Most warmly recommended."--Der Spiegel (Germany) [Translated from German]
**
(3.5 stars)"This darkly beautiful waking dream, crafted with deft orchestration and soporific beats by Brooklyn-based musician Andrew Spencer Goldman, exists permanently in the witching hour, when you can close your eyes and somehow manage to feel alone in a city of millions."--AM New York
**
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