LewisSpybey is the unique collaborative album from Edvard Graham Lewis (Wire, He Said, Hox, Dome etc) & Mark Spybey (Dead Voices On Air, Beehatch, Altered Statesmen, Zoviet France etc) who will release their debut album 'LEWISPYBEY' on November 8th via UPP Records.
Mixing lush electronic rhythms, sonic collage, ambient soundscapes and manipulated field recordings, these six compositions form a record with a strong identity and today they are sharing their first single "Castle Neptune".
Listen to "Castle Neptune" on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/vRey6jY9ayk
Pre-order album: https://lewisspybey.bandcamp.com/album/lewispybey
That this is such a vital and fertile partnership should come as no surprise. After all, both men have made careers out of creating confidently questing musics. Lewis with Wire, He Said, Hox, Dome etc. and Spybey with Dead Voices on Air, Beehatch, Altered Statesmen, Zoviet France and so on. This new album however, is something different again: experimental, yet tightly focussed, and not averse to the groove or the sly hook.
The pair met via an appearance on a podcast in November 2022, hosted by cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy. They hit it off immediately. “We did a live chat with Graham - which I think, went on for about three days” jokes Spybey.
It was Spybey who first broached the idea of a collaboration. “It was a bit like shy bairns get nowt: I just said ‘maybe we should make something together.’” And so, with no plan other than to see what might develop, the duo began to assemble the compositions at long distance. Indeed, Lewis and Spybey only met in the real world after the album had been completed.
“Mark sent half a dozen tracks in a stereo mix,” says Lewis. “And I looked at the ’topography’, to see where the spaces might be. So then I’d add to those areas. But then, when do you take it away? Sometimes you let it drop off a cliff, land in the shingle, and it gets washed out to sea again.”
The process moved at a pace. “Almost everything each of us brought, ending up being incorporated in some way.” Says Spybey. “We didn’t really go down any cul-de-sacs.” As Lewis observes “We have such a sympathetic tone.”
"Castle Neptune" opens up with a bright-eyed urgency, as a fat bass line bounces like a basket ball and Spybey’s keening wordless vocal add a sense of wonder. Then the piece suddenly drops away into an expansive bay of humming sound, pierced by intermittent blares of horn. However, as Lewis points out, this isn’t brass. “It was the sound of a train horn on the streets of Oakland.” Nevertheless it gives the album’s entry point a sense of the supernatural.
"Boot Island Twin" sets gentle pulses gliding through a shimmering heat haze of synth tones. This blissful ambient environment births a chittering rhythm, serving to pull us deeper into the composition’s warm heart. Something here suggests the opiated dancehall depths of Bandulu - perhaps the sense of the drum track cradling the musical colouring. With the album about to turn a shade darker, this 8 minute + track is an extended moment of beauteous balm.
"Antler Velvet" is formed of several strata of sound, and consequently makes perfect headphone listening. Although, as Lewis observes. ‘It’s quite often difficult to remember who did exactly what.” Spybey agrees: “That’s one of the ideas behind collaboration - you make yourself vulnerable. You can’t be too protective of ‘your’ stuff.” A virtual suite of dramatic ‘movements’, this feels like the soundtrack to a short psychological thriller.
"Trophy Hunters" is perhaps the album’s most intense piece. “I’ve always been attracted to the darker elements of musical compositions,” says Spybey. “And I know Graham doesn’t shy away from that either.” With its thunderous beats, pounding rhythms and sparking electrics, this is an unstoppable juggernaut of sound: bold, purposeful and thick with unease. Or, to quote Spybey “It’s quite a headbanger.”
"Keep The Way" is a track which appears to be constantly switching identities. To start, it pitches a Teutonic percussive pattern against shafts of stentorian noise, but this is soon subsumed by an undulating wave of glowing electronics. Although the piece resolves in a near celestial state (recalling Eno and Lanois’s work on Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks), the final note is one of dissonance.
"Gray Bay Play Watch" begins with a warm enveloping bass tone - almost like we’re inside the belly of a B52. Yet, as it evolves through a series of rhythmic and abstracted sections, it reveals itself to be the most intricately layered piece on the album. “There’s lots of playful noises in there,” says Spybey. “There’s even a fairground playing somewhere in the background. It’s ominous and joyful!” Lewis laughs, then elaborates. “It’s like Sam Beckett in Get Carter!”
Full of inventive sonics that draw on both men’s previous work, ‘LEWISPYBEY’ offers up a richly detailed soundworld.
LEWISPYBEY album artwork:
LEWISPYBEY album tracklist:
1. Castle Neptune (YouTube)
2. Boot Island Twin
3. Antler Velvet
4. Trophy Hunters
5. Keep The Way
6. Gray Bay Play Watch |
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