indie underrated

Low Winter Sun recently caught our attention with their new single Perpetual Motion. We reached out to the band hoping to learn more about their influences, and their process. Check it out!

How did you guys first get together?

We regrouped under the name Low Winter Sun 2019 after a long hiatus from recording and performance, but we’ve been friends and collaborators for about twenty years.  Ryan and Trevor in particular started playing together while still in high school.  We’re grateful that we have this opportunity to make music; for a long time, it seemed unlikely to ever happen again.

What are your common influences and what don’t you agree on?

‘90s alt-rock is fairly central to our sound and taste, but all of us have varied influences across many periods and genres.  Corey and Ryan are highly influenced by classic rock, especially the ‘70s, while Amy, as a classically trained symphonist, grew up immersed in early music and became exposed to a wider variety of sounds through the band while also learning how to perform in an entirely new way.

Amy likes Journey.  Corey hates Journey.  Corey thinks Amy is wrong.  They will never agree.

How do you approach recording sessions?

We try to preserve the sound of the band playing together to keep the human element.  We record all of our bed tracks live off the floor, then build, overdub and polish from there.  Burning Rainbow studios in Victoria BC, where we record, is a treasure trove of vintage and unique gear, and a lot of the fun is in exploring how we can elevate the production and breathe new life into the songs with the tools available.

For example, while looking to overdub some of Ryan’s guitar leads on Perpetual Motion, our latest release, instead of using the beefiest tube amp we could find, the sound engineer/producer/owner Neil pulled out a tiny, handmade cigar box amp.  Plugging straight into it and cranking the knobs gave us just the right buzzsaw sound the guitar needed to cut through on the track.  Likewise with Amy’s cello, the studio gives us the ability to record both live in the room as well as direct to the board through the pickup, allowing us to blend its natural acoustic sound with effects, most notably an octave pedal that brings out incredibly rich and powerful bass tones. In any case, our goal is always to remain true to the sound of the four of us playing together without chasing the latest trends.

We’ve also come to appreciate how time consuming the recording process is, overdubbing and mixing in particular, and how to manage our expectations accordingly.  After recording the bed tracks for our second album over two back-to-back weekends in January 2024, we shifted our focus to completing tracks one or two at a time so that we could steadily release singles throughout this year while finalizing the full release.

What do you have planned for this year?

Perpetual Motion, released on April 3, was our first release of 2025 and the third from our upcoming sophomore album.  We plan to release a single each month over the summer with the full album, This Art Has No Place, dropping sometime in the fall.  We have a number of local shows and one music festival booked over the summer with a number of other exciting opportunities in the works.

How do you feel about the state of the music industry?

Rife with risk and opportunity.  Streaming allows unsigned bands to distribute their music on a more equal footing with established acts by eliminating the complexity and cost of traditional distribution methods, and it’s easier than ever for audiences to find artists specific to their tastes.  That said, the democratization of distribution means that more folks than ever are releasing music, making it much harder to stand out in an increasingly crowded field.  The rise of AI is also a serious concern as independent music is frequently seen as grist for the mill in training AI algorithms, and the rise of AI-generated music, while unlikely to replace rock bands, could realistically pose an existential threat to professional musicians in some fields in the years ahead.