by Kevin Meenan of Epicsauce
Prior to their show at Café du Nord a couple weeks back, we had a chance to catch up with sibling duo Lymbyc Systym's Jared Bell via phone, and we had a lengthy discussion about the instrumental act's recording process, the benefits and drawbacks of their geographic barrier, the sans-vocals approach, their plethora of early influences and much more.
Kevin: When listening to your recent effort Shutter Release and 2007’s Love Your Abuser it is easy to forget that you guys are at the core a duo. The sound is incredibly rich and layered, and it is clear that there is much more going on than synth and drums. Can you give us any insight as to what is happening musically in the studio?
Jared Bell: The basic premise is that I play keyboards and my brother Mike plays drums, along with the programmed beats. And live, it is basically like that. But on the record, we both sort of do a bunch of things. There are a plethora of instruments - banjos, guitars, all sorts of little keyboards and toys, old and new. We also have some friends play on the album -- a couple different string players and a couple horn players. I could probably go way more in depth here, and make this a really long answer.