INTERVIEW: LSN – Ghosts in the Beat Machine

If you found yourself availed of a time machine, went back around 30 years to The Haçienda, grabbed the nearest reveller and dropped him right in the middle of a modern dubstep or drum and bass night, you’d be utterly undeserving of a time machine, but you’d probably also notice that the victim was rather taken aback. Taken aback that people are actually dancing to music with such a dark/ethereal/cerebral vibe. The first disco, hip-hop and house music was fed by jazz, funk and soul, and in turn jungle music and one drop were fed by reggae and dub, and the development of soundsystem culture expanded the thirst for deeper bass, harder beats and faster tempos. Now though, if you ask me, we’ve hit a big crossroads. The huge melting pot has boiled over and there’s molten music spreading across the dance floor. It’s stopped being about genre, and LSN are perhaps the best representation of that you’ll find anywhere.

There are a few things I could say to preface just how unique LSN are, but I think this is the best jumping off point – there are 6 of them. The vast majority of producers either act alone, or in a pair, perhaps with a favoured vocalist or MC, but 6 is almost unheard of. They came together when they were all living in North Wales, having all developed material under separate monikers in different styles. When they came together as LSN they were soon snapped up by Uprise Audio, Seven’s label, and they’ve been on it ever since. Their music definitely has roots in dubstep, but beyond that it’s almost impossible to hem in, an ominous coalescence of deep bass, schizophrenic drum programming, esoteric sampling, evocative vocals and hypnotic audio visual accompaniment. As you can probably understand, I’ve been trying to get in a room with them for some time.

As it turns out, I met them on a particularly special night, the launch of their first LP, Oblivion, and a triumphant return to one of the first venues they played as a group, The Silver Bullet in Finsbury Park. As is often the way with these things though, the actual getting into a a room part wasn’t so simple. We tried a pub first but couldn’t fight past the dull Friday night roars, and for a brief moment it looked like we’d be doing it in a takeaway, but eventually, and appropriately, I ended up in the venue’s spacious but somewhat creepy basement, literally surrounded by the group. 5 of them are producers: Jim, Dan, Joe, Tristan and Declan, who provides the audio visual element, and the 6th is their vocalist, Gwen. They all have solo monikers, (Feonix, Na-Kika, Noztaw, Fialko, 23KID and Simetra), but they were there to be LSN, not anything else. It’s easily the largest group I’ve ever interview in one go, complicated by the fact that the band is seemingly leaderless, they speak, and perform, on completely even footing.

You might wonder how exactly a hexagonal outfit like theirs even works, on any level. It’s something they’re still figuring out. “It’s kind of a hip-hop mentality” Dan reflects, before being corrected by Joe – “Wu-Tang mentality!” As the laughter dies down, Gwen steps in to clarify “The way we do it now is effectively a live PA set and DJ back-to-back set. I think the way we want to try and take it now is get a mixing desk, drum machine and all the instruments that we’d normally be sampling, played live. That’s the way we want to be writing music as well, think about it in that context.” Watching them perform as a full group later that night, you could see what she was getting at. It feels very improvisational and experimental, one of them will be at the controls and Gwen will be on the mic, but others will shuffle in and out to whisper something, adjust a dial or just jump up and down (usually Declan, in that instance).

The album itself, as with their previous releases, is consistent in tone, if not in style, but it always feels like it’s theirs, rather than a pastiche random influences. It’s deep, thoughtful, industrial and steeped in a kind of gothic, natural vibe. “The album is definitely a concept album, but I think that kind of happened naturally.” Gwen says, “It found its own concept as the tunes came together.” “We signed to Uprise with the concept of writing an album, that was the endgame of this first few years.” Jim adds, before Declan dives in to expand, “there were already a couple of tracks that we’d made and then earmarked for the album. ‘Conscious Choice’, for instance, was one of the early ones.” But what is the actual driving concept? Well, I asked, and I got about 50 answers, ranging from “Space and shit” to “Internal conflict” to “Nature”, but once all that died down Gwen summed it up – “It was a series of long arguments”. The Fleetwood Mac comparison flared up almost immediately, prompting Dan to mention that they had a cat named Stevie Nix. Cosmic.

Really though, it’s pretty simple, it’s fed by the environment they exist in, like all their music. Bass music tends to be pretty urban, but LSN started in Bangor, in the shadows of mountains and woodland. Even to look at the group, you could tell they were more about that, for the most part they were dressed like they were a change of shoes away from going on a hike. Well, apart from Declan, who was dressed like some manner of platinum space pixie. “Our surroundings are possibly one of our biggest influences.” Tristan says, leaning forwards. “Geography definitely shapes the kind of music you’re making, you’re a product of your environment.” Gwen adds. They’re not just on about mental influence either, they use their environment to build their sound.

“There’s a bomb shelter that has a big link to the album, because we made a lot of our recordings inside. The acoustics in there are amazing. That sound kind of runs through the whole album.” Dan says, before Joe comes in “There’s a big metal door in there and if you slam it the sound reverberates for about 60 seconds.” They admit that their approach to this kind of wild recording isn’t that slick, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Tristan explains – “When you’re out and about recording stuff, having not necessarily the best sound quality makes it feel more organic, and that’s how we get all this original, weird stuff involved.” The track ‘Shelter’ in particular is based around records done at this location.

The impetus on live recording extends to instrumentation as well, as is often the way with these things, everyone in the band has a musical background, whether it’s Gwen’s piano, Jim’s flute or Declan’s French horn (still unsure if he was joking or not). “It’s not random, there’s always a train of thought with it, we try and record live instruments as well, within our sampling. Not necessarily lines, but short excerpts of guitar or bongo, so there’s always an ingrained live feel to it.” Gwen says. “A lot of the sounds, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell where they came from. Like a guitar with an e-bow on it, going through a chaos pad.” Says Declan, before Jim turns to remind him that “One of the melodies on one of the tunes is just you going…” I can’t really type the noise he made, but it sounded something like I imagine Mr. Blobby would if you set to work on him with a cattle prod.

There’s another bolt to it, though, most of the tracks include Gwen’s vocals, and you have to wonder where that fits into the process. Gwen’s brow furrows as I ask her. “The thing is, when we’re actually getting on beats we’ll all be sat down together, on those rare occasions when we all are together in a fucking room, we’ll all be together working on it so the lyrics come quite organically, it’s due in the music making process. It’s usually a reflection of the tune or a particular melody, I might even get an idea for a vocal melody from that as we’re writing the beat.” Jim carries on, “There’s two tunes on the album, ‘Demons’ and ‘CWSG’, that she recorded the lyrics for before we did the tune.”

It seems like, even in the case of lyrics, which Gwen provides by herself, the mentality is still plural. When you watch them on stage, it doesn’t feel like 6 people, it feels like one entity. As their set progressed I found myself shutting my eyes at times to let it all sink in that much deeper, but there was still a part of me being pulled into the rhythm with everyone else in the room. Some of the new tunes definitely have more of a DnB bearing, which the group attribute to more time spent in Manchester, but the lyrics remain consistent. “I did try really hard to make the album work as a whole concept piece, because I don’t think people necessarily realise how much cross-referencing there is. Each tune will be a predecessor or an echo of another, a lot of themes and motifs recur. Some of my lines will reappear as a nod to earlier tune.” “There’s a lot of referencing in between tunes and I think that feeds into the concept of the album.” Declan says.

Similarly, Declan also provides an audio visual element proceedings, as and when he can. He’s been doing it as 23KID for years, and it’s something the group regard as pretty integral. “I use footage that I’ve already filmed and then try and transpose that onto a tune. There’s not too much editing with it, it’s usually quite a long take. There’s a lot of driving, filming from trains and movement, which allows a lot of stuff to happen without you necessarily needing to program it. There’s so much going on that your brain picks up on the bits that are in time.” He says. “The visual aspect is really important to use, the way geometry plays into it in particular. It’s really nice to have that visual accompaniment.” Tristan adds. Once again though, it runs deeper. “Because we make loads of different types of music, we also try and do other things outside of the music.” Joe explains, “We all love taking pictures.” Dan adds. They carry on to relay that most of the pictures used for the artwork are their own. Both the photographs for Oblivion and their recent single ‘Walkyman’ were taken by Gwen. “We’ve got a friend called Dan Parry Evans who sorted out all the graphics.” Says Declan “He gets where we’re from with it.”

If you’re getting the impression that LSN have a very strong guiding ethos, it’s no accident. They’re determined to do it all themselves, to exist as an independent entity as much as they can. Something about that obviously resonates, because last year they embarked on their first US tour. “It was only 3 of us that went this time around, it was sort of the maiden voyage.” Says Dan. “Since we’ve been out there everyone wants us to go back, so we’re trying to plan for us all to go next time. I think it’s given me loads of drive, and I think it will do the same for us all if we go back.”

Jim and Gwen went with Dan on the tour, and both of them are similarly enthusiastic about the response. “We’re so used to doing nights here and there’s a massive contrast, everyone seems so much more into it. Literally on the first night there were people jumping up shouting ‘fuck yeah!’” Jim laughs, with Gwen adding that “At the point when we went out there we had just spent like a year solid in a bedroom not seeing any sunlight just on Ableton. The difference between doing that and being outside, on a different continent, with people not only responding positively to our music, but having already heard and familiarised themselves with it, which was kind of a foreign concept to us. I didn’t think anyone had heard our tunes, I thought it was just us.”

Their reach doesn’t just extend to the States though, they even have a Japanese following. “There’s one guy called Nousless who’s done reviews since our first EP, you’ve got to read it on Google translate, so it’s always interesting seeing what comes up.” Declan says. “It’s quite inspiring that we’ve got that reach, I’m going to be in Australia later in the year so I’m going to look into a couple of gigs. I wouldn’t have thought of it if these hadn’t been to America. I wouldn’t have thought the audience would be there.”

Of course, that international appeal comes in part from their deep rooting in their Welsh origins. Joe takes a moment to reflect on the beginnings of LSN – “We’ve always had the base venue which is Hendre Hall. It’s like a barn or farmhouse, that’s where we’ve always put nights on. Some of us met there.” It was a night at that very venue called 11/11/11, played regularly by Dan, that first brought them together, and they still go back when they can. “I’ve been doing it for years. You can get 4 or 500 people in there, it’s just as good as playing London, even better a lot of the time.” He says, prompting Gwen to state that “I just feel like it’s a better scene there, not that anyone would ever believe me saying that. There are a lot of outdoor parties. It’s a big community.” Declan makes sure to mention one of their most familiar supporters, “Maff Clark has a sound-system that we use, he’s been supporting us since the beginning. He was putting nights on before we were LSN.” Of course, it all comes back to the landscape, neatly encapsulated by Jim – “One of the first LSN tunes was named after this mountain, Tryfan, big up Tryfan!”

Eventually, they plan to find a way to really refine their live performance, which is extremely exciting given how engrossing it is even in its current form. It comes back to this open, multi-faceted feel that their music exhibits, and they all have their own ideas about that. According to Declan “We find that sometimes the musical side takes the forefront and sometimes the technical side does. We’re all constantly learning from each other.” Dan, meanwhile, makes sure to keep it grounded – “The tempo is the one thing that we do decide and from there it’s just whatever happens.” Jim expands – “There’s more and more DJs that were just playing singularly one genre before and now they’re just going through all there is, starting at 110, finishing at 180, it’s just becoming more…” Dan finishes his sentence for him – “Diversified.”

Tristan, meanwhile, makes a point of related it back to their roots. “Even if you look at Dubstep, which is what we sort of started out making, there are so many influences within that sound, it’s come from so many things, if you look at soul, for instance, it’s not got as many influences…” He says, before Gwen chimes in “Well yeah it does, but carry on.” “…Dubstep has so many influences anyway so it’s easy to take it in those directions.” Gwen comes back in, properly this time – “I think that’s how we’d like to be known, as experimental, if I was asked what kind of music we play, that’s what I’d say, because we do make ambient stuff, DnB, dubstep, but then we’ll also make hip-hop. It’s rare that we set out to write a tune at a particular tempo, I think that’s the key thing, that there’s so many of us and we’ve all got so many different influences, it’s going to come out like a huge mélange of different genres. I don’t it could come out in any other way.”

Fittingly, at this point, as things were wrapping up, Seven was stood on the edge of the exchange, happily observing, and, being the one who signed them to Uprise, he chose that moment to offer his own insight. “The ethos of the band, when I first signed them, they wanted to do something where they became the genre. It’s not adapted to any scene, following or trend, it’s is what it is, and that’s what people are into, regardless of what tempo it is, what kind of vibe or mood it comes with, it’s all LSN sound. That’s pretty much it. A really unique identity.”

Seeing them actually run through Oblivion on stage removed any doubt I might have had about LSN’s future – the more they develop as a group, on stage and off, the more in demand they will become. No other artist or group bridges the gap between rhythmic appeal and depth of meaning the way they do, and if that’s so evident now, just as their first LP drops, imagine what it will be like in 3, 5 or even 10 years. Those three letters are going to etch themselves across a lot of brains in that time, just you wait.

Oblivion is available now, get it here.