QUICKIE OF THE WEEK

QUICKIE OF THE WEEK: A short interview with Heike Langhans & Mike Lamb (Light Field Reverie)

Pix666: Hello Heike, hello Mike. The most important question right at the beginning. Are you healthy and are you well?

Heike: Hey! Yes indeed, thank you and blessings to you as well. I’m having a nice long holiday in South Africa and the much needed sun sure makes me feel healthier than ever!

Mike: Hello! Thank you so much for taking the time to interview us. I’m good over here, New Zealand is probably one of the best places in the world to be right now thankfully. I hope you’re well too!

Pix666: In a few days your debut album ‘Another World’ will be released. How difficult was the way to a complete album under ‘Corona conditions’?

Mike: It was really easy for us thankfully; we live together and it was all done right there in our at our home studio! We have all the gear we need, except for the right vocal recording conditions at our last place, so we did everything easily together and it helped us stay sane in an otherwise insane year. I sent the finished songs over to Scotty in Scotland where he laid down his bass parts in his home setup and send the raw unprocessed files back to me to reamp and produce, so it was all very simple in the end. The only real challenge was that I had to travel back to New Zealand because of visa complications, so I had to basically mix and master the album in its final form while stuck in an isolation hotel in Rotorua, because people are required to isolate for 14 days before entering the country…but it turned out pretty well all things considered!

Heike: I have to say, this was the best and fastest way to finish writing and recording an album I’ve ever seen. Not only could we use every possible gap in our day to discuss and progress our ideas, but because we both get creatively obsessed with projects, we amplified and motivated each other to focus hard and get it done in just a few months. I think in the end we were both surprised at how effortlessly we work together and how much fun it can actually be to write an album when we’re in the same space every day. Now I wish every album going forward can be written and produced this way!

Pix666: Since when does the band Light Field Reverie exist?

Heike: February 2020 is when we really started actualizing our long-awaited dream of making music together. Once we moved into our own place last April, we reeled Scotty in and immediately started writing and producing the album.

Pix666: You are both successful in other bands as well. What was the reason to found another, new band?

Heike: Firstly, it was very apparent to me from the start that Mike and I have a deeper and very detail-oriented passion for sound and visuals. It’s like I finally found that perfect counterpart, who not only has the exact same vision, but cultivates his skills and becomes every bit as mentally and emotionally invested in his creations. I’ve been nothing but highly impressed and inspired to write again because of him.
With new bands, we have the opportunity to combine different elements we love outside of the expected genres from our other bands and this resulted in quite a unique sound. I think all 3 of us have been harbouring a need for doing something fun and positive to offset the tough year we’ve all had. The dynamic between Mike and Scotty has me in stitches all the time and that seems like a rare thing these days, so for me this band feels like a sanctuary!

Mike: Ever since Heike and I met we talked about how cool it would be to make music together, because I’ve been a huge fan of her unique voice and melodic approach for years. Sojourner toured with Draconian in 2019, and once Heike, myself, and Scotty became friends we knew we had to do something together at some point. There are a lot of atmospheres and musical approaches in Light Field Reverie that represent my musical loves and writing style that I can’t represent in Sojourner, and Heike and I have the exact same tastes and way of approaching writing, so it was inevitable that we’d start making music together. We just have so many ideas and so much we want to do, this is only the beginning for our future plans of us making music together both in LFR and in future projects.

Pix666: You have already released two singles this summer. The music is relatively quiet, very atmospheric and Heike’s voice is stunning. How were the reactions to the songs so far?

Mike: It seems to be really good so far! I can’t wait for people to hear the rest of the album, there’s a lot of aspects to the band that people haven’t heard yet.

Heike: I expected the general Metal fanbase to take a while to warm up to the different genres weaved into our songs, but the response has been overwhelmingly positive thus far. As Mike mentioned, we saved some surprises for the release!

Pix666: As an experienced musician, do you still check the number of streamings? Do you know in which countries you are listened most?

Mike: Oh I definitely keep in touch with those stats, not because it has some egotistical appeal but just because it’s fascinating to see where people are listening from. Our top 5 most listened countries in the metrics so far are the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden for instance. Streaming numbers are interesting to follow, but it’s still early days for the band so they’re not massively high just yet.

Pix666: When you release new songs, you surely want to play these songs live in front of an audience. Do you already have any plans for gigs in the future?

Mike: I would love to, but we would have to make it special. Heike and I have talked about it and made some loose plans.

Heike: We all agreed that the visual aspect is as important as the sound with this band, so we’d prefer a quality vs. quantity approach when planning future gigs. We’d love to make it memorable and different from the gigs we usually find ourselves doing, but no doubt it would be amazing to have the opportunity to play live! If only to hear how crushingly heavy the guitars would be!

Pix666: What else did you do besides the music during the contact restrictions? Do you have any interesting hobbies? Or is music simply everything in your life?

Mike: We watched a LOT of X-Files, Breaking Bad, and TV shows haha and played through a lot of games together.

Heike: Apart from the aforementioned, we spent time cooking together, nerding out with informative videos about synthesizers, and were taking walks almost every day. All-in-all, these restrictions actually allowed us to make up for lost time priorly spent in different countries before the pandemic.

Pix666: Do you have any other news about Light Field Reverie, or also about Sojourner or Draconian that you would like to share with the fans?

Heike: Not much on the Draconian front as we just released a new album and with the upcoming LFR release, we have time to let things simmer. My focus has shifted to finally writing new music for my solo project :LOR3L3I: and very exciting new creative ventures with my partner in crime!

Mike: Sojourner is working on something small for next year, but I can’t say much about that right now other than we’ve recently found a replacement for a member that left. More importantly though, Heike and I have got something new in the works, as well as a beautifully conceptualized plan for the next Light Field Reverie release. I’m genuinely really excited about future plans as we’ve woven some very detailed conceptual ideas together into something I’m truly excited about.

Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Stay healthy!!!

https://www.facebook.com/lightfieldreverie

https://lightfieldreverie.bandcamp.com/