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After a six-year hiatus that ended last year, the music duo Lore City is making music together once again, focused on sending out a message of oneness and putting positivity into the world.

The band is composed of Laura Williams and Eric Bessel, two Syracuse University alumni who graduated in 2005 and 2004, respectively. During the release of their third album last year, “Alchemical Task,” the band was also working on their latest LP “Participation Mystique” — scheduled to drop on July 23.

The duo spoke with The Daily Orange ahead of the album’s release to discuss how astrology and spirituality have influenced them, their musical evolution and advice for SU students hoping to pursue a career in music.

Below is the transcript from The D.O.’s interview with Lore City, edited for brevity and clarity:

The D.O.: This is your fourth album together. How do you feel like the songs on “Participation Mystique” have evolved from the way your music was when you first started out?

Bessel: It was very much more straightforward rock and roll with electric guitars. We did have a drum machine because it’s just us two, so there was that electronic element, but it was very guitar-based, and the song structures were a bit more traditional.

Now we have just blown the lid off, and anything goes, and it’s very electronic (and) experimental in the sense that not all of our songs have classic song structures.

We’ve most recently settled on something called the mellotron, which is the most wonderful instrument. We use digital mellotrons, and a lot of the sounds that we’ve brought in with this current album and the previous one, “Alchemical Task,” were cultivated from it.

Williams: Yeah, this mellotron Eric talks about has totally brought to life all these atmospheres and textures that I always wanted to make in music. The reason the mellotron is so cool is it samples real sounds, and these aren’t digital sounds that have been made by a computer. It’s an actual harpsichord that was recorded, or when you play the four female voice choir, it was actually four voices in a room being recorded. So it’s just really magical.

The duo said this album, “Participation Mystique,” was heavily influenced by astrology and spirituality.
Courtesy of Lore City Music

The D.O.: Is there a certain feeling that you’re trying to provoke from listeners with this album, “Participation Mystique”?

EB: One of the magic things about the vinyl record in context of limitless playlists and CDs that can go on for 73 minutes, is (that) somewhere between 14 and 22 minutes, you stop, and you flip the record. You could have been lying on the floor listening to the music or hanging out with friends and talking and then the record stops and then you have to flip it over, and there’s something kind of magic in that pause, so I appreciate that about the LP.

LW: I think one time I summarized our music as “ballads for the soul searchers.” I’ve always been somebody that really likes music that makes you pensive or emotional or brings you to some realization about life. Music that isn’t just something you put on in the background, but you really curate this playlist, and it really makes you feel something, and it makes you become this person that you want to be and do the thing that you want to do. It gives you this power.

The D.O.: You both mentioned how your visual arts studies have helped in a lot of different ways with your music. Is there any part of photography or visual arts that you feel has influenced your music or that you’ve applied to your creative process?

EB: I studied photography and got my B.F.A. in art photography at Syracuse, so I look at the medium itself as an additive process. Looking at a digital process of image-making, if you separate an image — whether it’s in RGB format, CMYK or various other formats — it’s a layered format, so by layering all of these different color layers together you get a whole.

I look at sound-making in a similar way in that you’re layering different sounds together, which on their own can be very strong, but it’s the sum of their parts that create the whole.

LW: I went to Syracuse for video art, and I just immediately became fascinated by the soundtracks and the sounds I would make to go along with the images. So, when I was at Syracuse, I felt like nurturing that exploration between sound and image, especially with my professor Tom Sherman.

So yes, visual art completely inspired the sounds that I make. I think my biggest takeaway from Syracuse was that it just instilled this confidence in me, being in the art program, that I’m just going to figure it out and make it happen.

Lore City’s Laura Williams said her time at SU gave her the confidence to stick through the creative process. Courtesy of Lore City Music

The D.O.: Is there anything that you both learned or experienced while you were at SU that has helped you as you put these albums together as independent artists?

EB: I remember I took a class my senior year, it was “Professional Practice in Visual Arts.” Basically, it was, you’re going to be finishing school, so here’s how you can plan out how to continue your artistic practice while juggling a day job, or a part time job or whatever it is as you transition from being a student to being in the working world.

For example, if we’re going to be doing a release and (it’s) in physical format, how much lead time do we need to be able to release a record? How does it differ when working with a label and a distributor, as we’ve done in the past, versus doing it ourselves?

It’s just timelining, it’s planning, it’s maintaining and building relationships, it’s forming connections, it’s seeing that we’re one part in a larger thing and then also looking for opportunities to collaborate with others and help them along the way too.

The D.O.: Do you have any piece of advice you’d like to give to current SU students hoping to also pursue a career in music?

LW: A long time ago, someone said to me when I was feeling stuck and just working a day job and just making songs in my bedroom, “the most important thing is that you just keep making your work and no one can ever take your work away from you.”

Sometimes things are going to line up and you’ll make money from (music), sometimes you might not, and you might always have a job in addition to that or maybe you’re one of the people where everything aligns and you can just be an artist for a living.

But I say don’t measure (your music) purely by financial success. There’s so much more to it, like your expression and connecting with people and other people finding it and putting meaningful messages into it. So just yeah, keep going.

EB: I would also like to add, the concept of success is totally subjective. One person could call success being featured on the radio, they could say success is getting signed to a record label or can also be pushing yourself to learn new instruments.

All these things could be measures of success, and also in the grand scheme of things, I mean there are years and years of music and creative ideas yet to come. We’re in our late 30s, and we want to keep making this music for decades. What would Lore City sound like in like 20 years from now? We don’t know, but we have some ideas.

Published on July 13, 2021 at 11:53 am

Contact Dakota: dcchambe@syr.edu