Live music and touring have been on lockdown and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we sat down for a fun Q&A session with Leuan Llewellyn (synths) of Sydney Fate.
5 albums that changed my life
1. Exmilitary – Death Grips
I find it hard for someone to tell me that they understand aggression in music without having a knowledge of MC Ride, the absolute powerhouse that comes though at one singular volume to tell you that transients are a lie.
Why it changed my life: insane heaviness, and aggression without plucking a string
Songs to yell along to: Spread Eagle, Guillotine, Takeon
2. The Poison – Bullet For My Valentine
While I can’t remember the last time I put this album on (I am playing it right now), I absolutely remember every single riff, and chorus. It’s without shame I admit that I more or less played the CD until it became a blank plastic husk, and was probably in constant playlist rotation for my entire adolescence. What was really awesome for me, was that they were from the same area, and as such they were these cool older kids who made it out and done something awesome.
Why it changed my life: unrelenting harmonies, and soundtrack to my teenage years
Songs to be nostalgic to: Tears don’t Fall, 4 Words to Choke upon, room 409
3. Biophilia – Björk
I am not sure what this album is about, but it kinda sounds like a mythical rendition of how the universe was created, but then reimagined by the wondrous cosmic eternity that is Bjork.
I first got into Bjork while I was studying at college, as she had just released Biopillia and the Army of me music video was reaching popularity on youtube. I remember my first reaction was more like “oh ew WTF”, but I couldn’t turn it off, and the more I heard the more I was in love with the music of Bjork.
Why it changed my life: Bjork is unbelievable, she makes immensely personal sounding music that twists and turns into these insane and wonderful adaptations of structure.
Songs to play while hiding: Crystalline, Mutual Core, Solstice
4. Colors – Between the Buried and Me
This album, like this album, this fucking album is insane. I don’t know what to say, It made me laugh, it made me cry, it really did change my life. I spent months learning nothing but the riffs from this album, and trying to work out what madness inspired them to be so unique. What really took me, is that every time I listened to this album there was a new element that I could pick out that would become my favorite sections.
Songs to play until the disc becomes blank: Ants of the sky, White walls, Viridian
5. Classical Curves – Jam City
I remember that moment so clearly, as Her started blasting out the PA and all I could think was “excuse the absolute – out of me what. is . this.”
Jam city showed me this hyper minimalism, and disregard for norms that melted my fragile little mind. The absolute audacity, cheekiness, fun and feels in these tracks is pure gold.
Why it changed my life: it showed me Night Slugs, and Fade to Mind, which turned me onto so much music that I would have otherwise missed.
Songs to shake it along to: Strawberries, The Courts, how we relate to the body
