Psychedelic/electronic act The Tear Garden are back with a freshly brewed new record Astral Elevator through Artoffact Records.
“I guess I first met Kevin (William Crompton—aka cEvin Key) on a long-distance phone call back in the early 80s,” shares Edward Spel. “Kevin had been collecting lots of obscure Legendary Pink Dots’ cassettes and made a collage out of the covers which he attached to a letter. We exchanged letters, then, one night, Kevin called me in London- taking turns to speak alongside Debbie Jones, also a penfriend, and Bill Leeb. I guess that was the initial step on the road for me to go to North America for the first time. They put me in touch with an agent in Vancouver (Laurie Mercer) who set up four solo shows for me in the city. Kevin controlled the sound from the desk and had also asked me to provide vocals for a mega piece of music called ‘Center Bullet.’ I wrote the lyrics on the plane somewhere over Greenland. We recorded the song, and it felt logical to do more. The first EP appeared out of the ether in maybe three days. Far too exciting to stop there… A year later Kevin invited me to open as a solo act for Skinny Puppy on a 30-plus show U.S. tour. It concluded with another studio session. (1987’s) Tired Eyes (Slowly Burning) took a week to make. Something beautiful was born…”
Crompton continues, “I became a big fan of legendary pink dots after first hearing them on the elephant table album, sometime around 1983. I started collecting all the tapes that I could find, which was very difficult, and strangely on the record sleeve of the elephant table album they listed the record label in phase records and actually included a phone number. So one night with friends we decided to call the number and oddly Edward KaSpel answered! That’s began communication and before too long Edward had booked a show in Vancouver Canada where I lived, he asked me if I would be interested in doing the live sound for him. Of course I said yes he did three shows in Vancouver, and one in Seattle, of which I joined him as a sound engineer, I mentioned, having an instrumental song called the center bullet that I gave him to listen to, and he coined the lyrics for it, which meant we had to go and see what would what this would sound like and that’s how our first song and collaboration began. January 1986.”
Every band craft their music differently. Even when it comes to different projects, the blueprint changes, or sometimes they evolve. For The Tear Garden, it has always been a collaborative effort. It is Kevin who takes the lead, by sending Edward lots and lots of raw material, sessions that were seriously inspired, together with a few guidelines pointing out his favorites. For Kevin, his approach to writing music is like he has a dice in his hand, and he is about to throw a roll, while having no idea what the outcome will be. “I like happy accidents and sounds all sorts of things that I might find appealing about something unique in chance, and with that basis, I can follow and see what more I can extract from a chance, improvisation or creation, I found that to be one of the most interesting ways, especially since I spend most of my time now creating alone in my studio. Previously, I did work with Dwayne Goettel, and having a partner I had a different approach but on my own I tend to take the latter. I can always sort of recognize an idea that might be suitable for Tear Garden. It just has a particular tone where I can imagine the sound of Edward‘s voice on it and quite often it turns out to be the case. However, when I send songs to Edward now he has a magical way of dismantling the idea and rebuilding it with the idea of lyrics, and I think that always creates a composition that I could never of conceived but together we reach a plateau that we both enjoy.”
With Astral Elevator, the duo revisits their early materials, which shaped their uniqueness. The record also acts as a conceptual journey. “It feels conceptual- a unity is there that seemed to be suggested from just the first cursory listen to the raw sessions,” Edward states. “Somehow there is a link to that very early Tear Garden material, but today’s tools allow the kind of expansion we could only dream of back in the 80s.”
Kevin states that the new record is a return to an electronic format that they had kind of explored on their debut album Tired Eyes Slowly Burning. That recording experience was the turning point where things started working like a band. As for the theme of the new album, it does center on a single one, but an infinite current of ideas. “There is no one theme,” Edward says. “The journey begins with a ghost looking in, promising to come back, then the real World enters the journey and it’s wild, sad, ecstatic and sometimes funny- but unified, no boundaries.”
The Tear Garden’s 40th anniversary is approaching, and they are thrilled about the release of the album. The band are eager to play live as they have never played live before. If a tour happens, the preferred location will be USA first. This stands as a goal that they want to achieve in next year. Everything is still in the planning stages, but hopefully some good news will drop soon.
Astral Elevator is out now from Artoffact Records and you can order it here. Follow The Tear Garden on Facebook for future updates.
Photo courtesy of social media
