006 Lymbyc Systym

Lymbyc Systym - "Prairie School" by western.vinyl

 what have you been up to lately?

we have just been finishing up the album as of late, we were putting the finishing touches on editing and mixing as late as spring of this year.  we did a successful tour of part of europe this past march, hitting a bunch of towns in germany, as well as switzerland, russia and poland.

 can you describe how "love your abuser" came to be?  what made you want to make it?  what was it like recording it? and did you know you were on to something amazing while you were making it?

before love your abuser, we made carved by glaciers, which existed as our demo/1st ep for a couple years.  somehow through carved by glaciers and the ways of the universe we attracted the attention of mush records out of los angeles who offered to put out a full length. they gave us a tiny bit of money which enabled jared and i to take off work for three or four weeks and write/record a whole record from start to finish.  we had elements of some songs before hand, such as birds and fall bicycle, which we pimped out for love your abuser.

 what is your favourite stuff that you have made?

i have to say that i am happy with every song jared and i have ever released to the masses.   we pour out our hearts, soul, love and taste into the music we make, and while i cant tell how good it really is, i know we put our all into the production of every song and album we release.  that being said, i appreciate evolution in an artist and would hope the songs on Symbolyst are a nice streamlining, and consolidating of ideas from lymbyc systym you may have heard before. i'm proud of that.

 if you could piece together a supergroup of musicians to play with who would you choose? what's your favourite stuff to listen to?

well, assuming the band can include musicians who've passed away, i would have elvin jones on second drums.  andrew barr of the slip on third drums, madlib on electronics, jay dilla on mpc, jimi hendrix on guitar, ron carter on bass, all of wu tang on vocals, john zorn and john coltrane on sax, miles davis on trumpet, justin vernon on vocals, james blake piano and vocals, jared bell keyboards

 what inspires you to get out of bed in the morning and do what you do? can you describe a day in the life of lymbyc systym?

these days i just work on music all day, everyday.  between the several bands i rehearse, gig and tour with i stay quite busy thinking about music and the drums.  that keeps me well inspired!   a day in the life of lymbyc systym is slightly more exciting on tour then not on the road, but never anything too crazy or interesting.  jared works for a design firm in brooklyn.  even on tour, we keep things rather simple and mellow, with only an occasional night of a bit of drunken debauchery.   i can tell you that a day in the life of lymbyc systym on an asian tour is a very long day.  last year we played tokyo, taipei, hong kong, bangkok and hanoi 5 days in a row, which means a ton of flying for 5 days straight!  between going out to eat and drink and hanging out until 3am after the shows, then having to be at the airport to fly out at 6 or 7am meant very little sleep in that week in lymbyc systym's life.

 can you tell us about your live setup?  what can people expect when they come out to see you?

live we keep it pretty simple.  i use a simple 4 piece kit w a laptop computer to add computer percussion and texture into the live sound. jared uses a nord electro 2 and a microkorg to play melodies and textures from the records.   i would say our live sound is a bigger sound than that on record.  maybe thats true for every band though?

 you have a new record coming soon, what can you tell us about it?

our new record Symbolyst comes out september 12th on & Records in japan and September 18th on Western Vinyl for the rest of the world. its our first release in over 2 years! we are releasing this album through a new label for us, western vinyl out of austin, tx and are very excited about that.  western vinyl is home to some of our favorite artists such as dirty projectors, here we go magic, j tillman, balmorhea and the list goes on...

 what are your thoughts on touring?  would you rather travel and tour or relax and work in the studio?  what are your favourite cities and venues toplay?

i love both making albums at home and touring abroad, but i have to say personally my favorite of all is international touring.  i've had the opportunity to travel, even if just briefly, to some really cool places around the globe and it wouldn't have happened if not for music and lymbyc systym for the most part.  i think my favorite cities to play are the ones where our band seems to do slightly better than our average show, such as new york, chicago, austin, tokyo or kuala lampur and others.   as for venues, i really dig the empty bottle in chicago, o-nest in tokyo, kulturkeller in fulda germany and black cat in dc

 is there anything you want to plug? anyone to shout out?

want to plug the new album Symbolyst, hope people can check that out. we premiered a track a few days ago from Symbolyst on xlr8r.com.

Lymbyc Systym - Truth Skull by MushRecords

www.lymbycsystym.com/