INTERVIEW WITH PITTSBURGH POST-PUNK / SHOEGAZE LEGACY ACT LOWSUNDAY (PROJEKT RECORDS)

Pittsburgh-based duo Lowsunday has released their first record comprised of all-new material since 1999, bridging three decades of distinct sonic legacy. The ‘Low Sunday Ghost Machine – White EP’ delves into emotional isolation, this music laced with a counterbalance of escapism, dreamlike sounds, drones and feedback, with carefully-placed classic song structures with melodic hooks. Released via Projekt Records, this follows the release of the extended 30th anniversary remaster of their debut album ‘Low Sunday Ghost Machine’ and the 25th anniversary remaster of their sophomore album ‘Elesgiem’ in 2024.

Lowsunday is now a duo made up of Shane Sahene (vocals, guitar, synth, bass, drums) and Bobby Spell (bass, guitar, drums), this EP serves as both a reflection and a resurgence, highlighted by their new video for ‘Love Language’. Blurring the lines between post-punk, shoegaze, dreampop, and darkwave since 1994, Lowsunday brings something new to the music scene, treading sonic waters with screeching guitars and layer upon layer of arsenic-laced melodies, crowned with bittersweet and emotive vocals. From quiet intensity to sweeping sonic landscapes, Lowsunday makes a welcome return with their retro-futurist daydream.

About the new EP and Music

1 After more than 25 years since your last release of all-new material, what inspired the creation of the Low Sunday Ghost Machine – White EP?

Thank you so much for this interview! We have been in a creative mode! Our love for writing and recording has been especially renewed over the last two years. As Projekt Records gave us the opportunity to remaster and re-release our first two albums. During this process we began putting together bonus tracks and remixes. We loved focusing on those and had so much fun. This also left us very anxious to write and record new songs. Our heads have always been in this- a desire to get in the studio hasn’t left since we were young and it’s always been our place of excitement.

We loved the idea of doing an EP series for the immediacy. It’s fun to release music at the height of our excitement for the songs. Full length records take much longer and often , so many good songs can get overlooked. An EP gives no place to hide – this is where you put your best songs and they get attention.

2 How does the ‘White EP’ connect to your earlier work, like Low Sunday Ghost Machine and Elesgiem, and what new directions did you explore musically?

The three connect in that they share many of the same elements. Time is beautiful for gaining perspective. We can look at our catalog of songs and know what we did that made us the happiest and felt the best. We love the escapist nature and have always immersed ourselves when we record. There are times we have come out of the studio and almost don’t recognize ourselves. We love getting lost in this process and in doing so- we find ourselves utilizing the same tactics in getting there. We have walls of guitars , amps, effects pedals, drums and synths -the same things we’ve always had. If anything , we have just refined our vision for the songs we want to make- we may be indulging more heavily into synthesizers again but then we might jump into trying to outdo ourselves with any previous atmospheric stuff with guitars. We still rely heavily on tube amps and analog effects and synths.

3 Can you talk about the themes behind tracks like “Love Language,” “Soft Capture,” and “Nevver”? What emotions or ideas were you aiming to convey?

This is such a difficult question- maybe one we don’t want to know the answer to. We tend to circle around a certain emotions of being unsure or hesitantly optimistic. Often our songs relate to isolation and escapism. We tend to lace these themes in euphoric atmospheres but there is often something ready to counterbalance the emotion.

4 The EP is described as blending post-punk, shoegaze, dreampop, and darkwave. How do you approach balancing these genres in your sound?

We have been fortunate enough that we never consciously pursued a balance – we naturally will write something and then step in another direction. It’s energizing for us to shift our focus. These are all genres where almost all of the bands we love fall into. When we started out , there were less sub genres and it wasn’t something we considered – we were just trying to write the best songs we could- probably with more influences than we could identify.

5 How did the process of writing and recording this EP as a duo differ from your work in previous band lineups?

We have pretty much loved everyone we have ever played with but the songwriting process can be very slow and unfocused when there are multiple ideas being injected. The two of us have great conversations and have always been empathic. We are sensitive with each other and we are close enough that we are often on very complementary wavelengths. We love introducing ideas to each other – knowing that it will light the other one up. We can work very fast and purely in these conditions.

Video & Visuals

6 You’ve released a video for “Love Language.” Can you share the creative process behind the video and how it complements the song?

We have worked with Jer Herring on the last two videos. We start with vague ideas and Jer is great at translating them. He is great at formulating a vision and capturing the feeling of the song.

7 Shane, you also handled the album artwork and layout. How important are visual aesthetics to Lowsunday’s overall sound and identity?

The cover art for this Ep series are from a larger series of photographs that would probably fall into the Brutalist category. We tend to view our music in a similar way. We love high contrast – loud / soft , black / white but we also love the drones , the gray – we love a cold or brittle aesthetic and this makes color or warmth really exaggerated when it appears. The layout was done by Christina Sahene , my wife. For Bobby and I, Photoshop has become so intuitive that we don’t know how to use it anymore. Haha

Songwriting & Collaboration

8 Can you walk us through your songwriting process? How do Shane and Bobby collaborate on lyrics, music, and arrangements?

This EP often started with a melodic idea on guitar. We run with it and start building around it. One song came from a dream. Sometimes a drum beat inspires a bass line. Eventually we get far enough into it where we feel like we are trying to get the song to reveal

Itself. It’s like an interrogation – tell us who you are ! The lyrics often come after where sometimes I agonize to find the words that anyone can make their own. We want our songs to feel like they belong to the listener.

9 With multiple instruments handled between the two of you, do you record everything yourselves or incorporate outside input at any stage?

We record everything ourselves. Bobby and I each jump around enough on instruments to be dangerous. But seriously, we come from a diy background- punk gave every musician the desire for self reliance. We think the song itself is 95% of the battle. We feel that when a song idea is strong – we trust ourselves enough to know we can capture it musically and fairly effortlessly. One could have the world’s best musicians in the worlds best studios with the best engineers but if the song isn’t there , it doesn’t matter. We are protective of our situation and are very careful about what we let in.

10 How do you decide when to push a song into more atmospheric, noise-driven territory versus more melodic, dreampop moments?

Nice question! We just have a shared instinct and the ideas kind of tell us where to go. This is more of a feeling than something that is verbalized. Often our mood can push us one way or another but the song reveals itself and that’s what we follow.

Legacy & Influence

11 Lowsunday has been active since 1994. Looking back, how do you feel your sound has evolved over the decades?

We are more dialed in and are better capable now of getting our ideas captured. It’s one of the best benefits of time and experience. We have slowly grown and have made enough mistakes that we know what not to do most of the time. Something as simple as using the wrong type of delay on a vocal or using the eq on a guitar amp that grabs its personality – we laugh at how much gear we’ve had over the years and didn’t know how to use it or a lyric that should have never made it to tape. This isn’t to say we won’t continue to make mistakes or have regrets.

12 Which artists, past or present, have had the biggest influence on your music and why?

We don’t really have a “go to”. Our taste and sensibilities developed way before the internet. Our access to music was limited to whoever gave us a mixtape, whatever was played on college radio or whatever bands we happened to stumble into. We connected with punk rock outsider stuff – we share a lot of influences.

For me, Government Issue had a huge impact early on. And much earlier than that were the New Wave / Postpunk bands my sister was blasting that I didn’t fully appreciate until a first heartbreak. Depeche Mode , OMD, Dead or Alive , Cure , New Order. Siouxsie, Flesh for Lulu. Jesus and Mary Chain and then later Xymox, Ride, House of Love, the Sound, Chameleons.

And for Bobby and I, we shared a love for the SST bands to 4AD bands. Gang of Four is another we share.

We look back at labels like Sire , Beggars Banquet , Mute, Creation, Metropolis, Homestead. And really Projekt , it’s one of the reasons we were so happy to sign with them so long ago – Sam was releasing music that we loved for a long time. When we first got distribution in the Projekt Darkwave catalog – we were on top of the world. But these labels curated so much good music and exposed us to so much good stuff.

It’s hard to call the current bands we love influences but we would regret not mentioning some of the bands we hold in high regard such as A Place To Bury Strangers, Feeble Little Horse , Broncho, Glixen, she’s green, Diiv, Twin Tribes, TRAITRS. Really, this is the hardest question because there are so many. We’ve alway hesitated to name names because there are so many that get left out and tomorrow the list would change a little.

13 Your music has often been described as a “retro-futurist daydream.” How do you see Lowsunday fitting into the contemporary post-punk/darkwave scene?

We will probably always feel like outsiders.

At the same time, we love so many of the bands that are out there. There are so many good songwriters and they’re getting great recordings. We have watched it steer into an almost Pop direction which is something we could have never imagined- much as it did with “punk” .

We typically withdraw and just realize that we are fortunate to have come up at a different time and our comfort is in a specific place – when we are writing and recording- that’s the moment we try to live in. We will always respect bands that have their hearts in the right place.

Anniversaries & Reissues

14 You recently released the 30th anniversary remaster of your debut album and the 25th anniversary remaster of Elesgiem. How did revisiting these records inform or inspire the new EP?

These remasters lit a fire in us. We became very inspired. We loved working within the confines of a remaster. It was a perfect place for us to get our senses sharpened. The past is a fun place to visit. This was a total gift for us to travel back and get to tweak and make these recordings sound like we always thought they should. They also left us anxious to get into the studio and slip back into the creative mode – we were bursting with inspiration. We went through this process with so much excitement and were absolutely thrilled the day we picked up the vinyl for this new EP – we recorded this record like someone would walk through their favorite store. We just grabbed the sounds we wanted and there was no looking back. We feel so lucky.

15 Were there any previously unreleased tracks or ideas from past sessions that influenced the new material?

Not directly- it’s all part of a bigger desire to write better and better songs. We tend to write each song like it’s our last.

Live Performance & Touring

16 Do you have plans to perform the new EP live, and if so, how will you adapt the layered, atmospheric sound for a stage setting?

This is a question we constantly kick around. We love playing live but right now we recognize the place we are in. When we were younger, we took everything for granted- as we should have. Right now, we know that we are in a special place. Our writing is better than it has ever been and we are rolling with it while the songs are flowing. We know that there is a cycle to everything. We can’t wait to support our catalog at some point in time with live shows.

As layered as the songs are , they will take on a life of their own once they’re performed live. Usually that means more raw and with more energy- it’s the whole experience that hopefully captures the essence of the recording.

17 How do you feel the energy of performing live differs from creating these more introspective studio recordings?

Live is always such a thrill. For us that comes with adrenaline and all sorts of things. Bobby and I both have described live performances at times like an out of body experience. Whether it’s the introvert in us that the brain creates a sedative for or whatever it is that happens- it’s like walking into a dream for us. Bobby calls it “non- reality” haha

When we were younger , the fog machine was an essential piece of gear…. I think we used it to hide.

Future Plans

18 The ‘White EP’ is the first of a two-EP series. Can you give us a preview of what to expect on the follow-up?

Yes! The next EP is the “ Black EP”. We are 4 songs into it with one more to go. This is a very cohesive follow up to the first EP. We’ve intentionally kept alot of our mic’ing and setup in a way that it will sound like it’s an expansion but that it belongs together. Once people hear the Black EP it will all make sense. We can’t say too much yet but the day we are most excited for is when the Black EP arrives in the spring.

19 Beyond this EP series, do you have longer-term plans for Lowsunday, whether it’s a full album, more videos, or other projects?

Yes! We wanna do it all! There is no telling where this path goes. It’s a creative process that can lead anywhere. That’s the fun. We will

Keep doing videos , recording and writing until we know it’s time to shift over to focusing on being a live band again. It’s a whole other world. We love and miss that world ! As much as we love being in the studio, there are situations that could quickly pull us in that direction. A chance to play supporting dates with a band we love or an invitation for something special and fun. We are super lucky to have many talented musician friends who have offered to play with us when we go that direction.

20 Finally, what message or feeling do you hope listeners take away from Low Sunday Ghost Machine – White EP?

We would always hope that our music can find people that are comforted or excited by it ..that it’s something that feels relatable or enjoyable or even more so that it offers connection with someone that may feel isolated… that they feel what we feel and find relief if they need it.

Thank you again for the interview and for such great questions!