LYTS launch their debut LP, Initiate, at The Velvet Lounge this Saturday, March 22, with guests Wisdom2th, plus DJs Tomas Ford, Travis Doom, Petro Sex, Jess Kill and T-Rets & Lowaski. BOB GORDON reports.
Over the years Laith Tierney has been nothing if not prolific, in a diversity of bands such as Fear Of Comedy, The Bible Bashers and various individual pursuits.
His new outfit, LYTS, with collaborator Yaegar Strauks, continues the artistic speculation.
“I’d like to think I’ve done too many different styles to be known for any one particular thing,” Tierney says, “so this to me seems like the next logical step. It’s a matter of what haven’t I done and that was kind of the intention. I’d say the best way to characterise LYTS is two guys from different backgrounds experimenting with new sounds but totally on the same page musically.
“I feel the hip hop background I’m known for rings through in LYTS,” Strauks adds. “Some of the musical styles I use I have been working on with rappers, now we are signing over it. I guess I’m liking taking a step back from writing lyrics and concentrating wholeheartedly on the sound, so it’s a lot more refined and tricked.”
The musical chemistry between the two may be somewhat newfound, but it seems that’s the whole point.
“It’s like having the bandmate that I’ve been looking for since I was 17,” Tierney says. “I just want to work with people as enthusiastic I am about making music and doing as much as I can with that music. That’s on a professional level. Musically, there’s some kind of fucked up telepathy thing going on. Possibly separated Siamese musical twins or something. I’m scared.”
When Tierney and Strauks originally paired up, there weren’t plans for anything other than being creative. However…
“Two songs in we knew the album was coming,” Strauks enthuses. “It was just a matter of capturing the moments.
“The momentum came from being frustrated with the lack of momentum in our previous band,” Tierney chimes in. “We knew we could write effectively together, so we just started out with recording at home, then the sound started taking shape and the tracks begun to complement each other more and more. It’s all happened very quickly and there are a bunch of half finished ideas on the cutting room floor.”
As such, LYTS are already well into work on a second album titled Sequence, which has taken another trajectory from the first.
“It’s all about reaching new levels,” says Strauks. “Every time we make a new track it has to better than the last.
“So far Sequence is sounding more mature,” Tierney says. “It’s not a conscious decision musical, or lyrically, to move away from anything on Initiate, though. It’s just the natural evolution of this songwriting/production team.
“The rest of 2014 will be filled with as much songwriting as possible. We gotta finish off Sequence and tour Initiate. It’d be nice to know the music is getting heard, that it’s connecting with listeners and that they relate to it.”
