Current mood:  accomplished
Category: Music
Duo embraces love in music, life
May 11, 2007
BY DAVID JAKUBIAK Hip-Hop
Interviewing lovers can be a dicey affair with the potential for syrupy mush to gush from the mouths of Cupid's prey, but for Lovers in Arms, love provides a solid foundation for fresh music.
"She was just a natural complement. She was the yin to my yang. As soon as we met, we hit it off and the musical relationship blossomed," Armando Perez says of his 2003 introduction to Caroline Yohanan.
Perez, a guitarist, producer and rapper, was looking to become involved in more projects. Yohanan was a recent University of Illinois grad who didn't have formal training but had a haunting voice, notebooks full of songs and a soul pining to sing.
"I came over one day and started singing into a microphone and he asked if we could be in a band together," Yohanan recalls. "We instantly clicked on a songwriting basis before we got together as a couple. We were always writing songs together and realized how fun it was."
That first band was Frequency Below, a funky live outfit that infused jazzy elements over down-tempo grooves with last year's release "Foundation." For their second project, however, Perez and Yohanan dipped into their home studio to create an electric album in the vein of artists like Bjork and Portishead. The goal, Perez explained, was to create something "electronic and out there."
Yohanan says the shift was natural.
"I had all of these songs written and he had all of these beats made, and we love trip-hop music. We just wanted to make music that we would like to listen to, and it was a really satisfying."
That project is "Belmont Electric," which was released in January under the duo's new moniker. The name, Yohanan says, is a rejection of hate.
"We're in a crazy world, with crazy politics and crazy leaders, so much fighting. Instead of thinking about what is in power, which is people in arms, why not think about lovers in arms? It may be preachy, but I think everyone can be lovers in arms."
As this would suggest, the record is full of love songs draped over percolating danceable tracks. But bubblegum and lascivious lewdness are eschewed for a fuller view of the complexities of relationships.
"You have kept me at a distance, you're unwilling for a compromise," Yohanan laments on "Love Me Still," "when I offer you my comfort, you think I have come to criticize."
The honesty of the stories on the album comes from their autobiographical genesis.
"We are both very creative, very emotional people," Yohanan says. "We have fights and go through hard times and great times, and that's what people write songs about. Sometimes we might have an argument, but instead of getting in a fight, we'll write a song."
Other times, she says, her muse instantly opens up to Perez's tracks.
"Sometimes I'll hear a beat and a few minutes later I'll be singing into the microphone, not even writing down what I'm saying, and just doing something real stream-of-conscious, and later I'll go back and listen to what I sang and I'll write it down and keep those lyrics."
Sonically, Perez wanted "Belmont Electric" to push him out of his comfort zone as a guitarist, so he forced himself to incorporate elements like horns and synthesizers on this project.
"I wanted to not be afraid to not play guitar on a track," he says.
In addition, Perez rhymes on several tracks, in a laid-back, conversational style.
"Just growing up and going to parties where there'd be someone beat-boxing in the corner, it was fun getting back to that," he says.
Once they finished "Belmont Electric," Perez and Yohanan faced a hurdle.
"With electronic music, I can sit in the studio and play all of the parts," Perez explained. "But you can't necessarily re-create that live; two people onstage is a lot different than four or five."
So, for the last several months they've been assembling a six-piece band to re-create the sound of the album and in turn to allow them to perform it live.
"We practiced and practiced and we've finally got it sounding exactly how we want it. Now it sounds like what we created, not a sparse version of what we created," Yohanan says.
"It's a six-piece band with a couple samplers and a couple synthesizers," says Perez, "There are no CDs or anything like that. It's all live, so it's a beautiful thing."
And so, this summer Lovers in Arms plans to wrap Chicago in their sound and in their message.
"I see how much people need love to live," says Perez, "and I see how love can help a person mature and be all they can be."
Hey guys,
Check out this article that appeared in the Suntimes' Weekend Plus May 11th 2007!!!
(http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/378965,WKP-News-hiphop11.article)
Thank you...
LIA
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