I once ventured into a bar where no ever knew anyone's name and everyone liked it that way. We were all drifters in a sense, drifting away from the status quo, away from we where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to do. People came for the live music, lack of conversation, and libations. I called up a dollar-fifty PBR and checked out the stage: a drum set and stacks of keyboards. Two kids fresh out of a high school yearbook and obviously related were at the helm. One shirtless and both barefoot, they drove home a sound that moved glaciers. I yelped and hollered. I had more PBR. After the set I approached the stage to inquire. Yes, cds were for sale. No, I wouldn't be disappointed if I was enjoying the show.
That was about three years ago and The Lymbyc Systym sounded so much different then. That cd, Live Kin, became a daily ritual, and the title track was perfect ambiance for a desert sunset. It descended slowly, only picking up speed inches from the horizon, showering the listener with an aural display of of brilliant orange fading to pink, purple, and black. I was saved.
I checked their website and free music was offered, but only briefly. Days later it was gone. I felt truly lucky, and one day they returned to that unnamed bar for the nameless. Everything sounded the same, except slower, refined, tuned, purposeful. The High Sierra Music Festival offered recordings from most acts from the 2005 lineup. The Lymbyc Systym was included. I ordered. Things had slowed yet again, but a masterpiece was offered. It was the sound of nostalgia, of memories reoccurring in the dim, faded blue of lost consciousness. The music was restful, without being tiring, blue without being melancholy. Shortly after, the band put out another live disc. I was hoping for more of the same, but this time blips and noises and electronic clicks and beats and been subtly added. "No, no, no," I said to myself. Then I listened again. And again. Then I said, "Thank you."
That brings me to today where the first full-length studio album of The Lymbyc Systym, Love Your Abuser, is on day three of nonstop repeat. It is the soundtrack of a reminiscent tear falling down a cheek after coming across a photo of long forgotten memory. A memory that always made you smile, until time and tragedy washed it away from your conscience. The exaggerated, slow pace hints at Sigur Ros and accentuates the brief moments of brilliant fury that leave you shining in the sun on a snow capped mountain. Usually haunted and unnerved by my own thoughts, no other music has left me in such a comfortable state of introspection. At ease.
