Interview: Lumwest Releases 'Companions of Time'
“Companions of Time” turns the sun and the moon into something to be afraid of. When did you start seeing them that way, and did writing the song change how you feel about time Passing?
The sun and moon began to symbolize a race against time for me the past year, as I began to see a lot of my friends moving on to bigger and better things. While I of course was happy for them, and still wish them all the best, the feeling that my life wasn´t really going anywhere began to settle in and the feeling of getting left behind terrified me. This happened especially while spending whole nights awoke, often going for walks seeing the sun come up. I still ponder a lot about that feeling, however, I would say writing a song about it helped putting it into words for myself, and why I feel this way.
Your debut album was named Entropy, after the scientific measure of disorder, and now
you’re writing about time running out. Is there a thread running from that record into this new Album?
Not really. There is definitely its own theme forming throughout this next album, but separate from my debut.
You played, sang and recorded every part of this track alone in your bedroom. What does
working completely solo give you, and what’s the hardest part of it?
For me, having a sense of complete control over what I make is a huge part of why I prefer to do it alone. There´s no one to decide for me what to do when writing a song which I feel gives me endless possibilities. On the other hand there's no one to pull the plug on me and tell me a song is finished. Often making me work on a song for months on the smallest things. That might not sound like a problem, perfectionism is a good thing right? But sometimes you push to hard and “overproduce” it. That can take a lot of the soul out of the song I think.
Your sound pairs 60s psychedelia like Jefferson Airplane and The Doors with newer acts like Tame Impala and Altin Gün. What do you take from the old records, and what do you take from the new ones?
I would say I mostly take inspiration from older bands with my instrumentation and song structure while blending it with modern production and song-writing. That being said, I don´t want a “clean” sound necessarily. The modern production is more of a tool for me to try to subconsciously give the listener a better experience, while still having the feeling of classic 60s psychedelia.
You also draw and paint, and you designed the cover of Entropy yourself. How does your
visual art feed into the music, and is it shaping the look of the new album?
The cover for Entropy represents a hydrogen-atom, as it´s the element with the highest amount of entropy. So that was pretty directly inspired by the name of the album. However, I wouldn´t say my visual art inspires the music so much, it´s more the other way around. While I mostly liked to draw and work on visual art when I was a kid, It was in my teens that changed to music. Now, the only time I really draw or paint is when making covers. For example the cover for “Companions of Time” features a painting I made with liquid glass. This isn´t really relevant to the music so much, other than I feel the painting gives a psychedelic aesthetic.
What’s the scene like for psychedelic rock in Kristiansand right now, and how do these songs change when you take them from the bedroom to a stage?
It´s not exactly booming and blossoming with new psychedelic-rock artists in Kristiansand, as I would say there's a bigger emphasis on prog-rock and metal over here. The only other local psych-rock band that comes to mind is “Finnskogen” which are fantastic.
The songs themselves do change sometimes when we take them to the stage though. Either with longer intros or outros, different harmonies we may try while singing or other experiments like different guitar effects etcetera.
