LN - by L. Jeanette Strole

"I live my life in widening circles, that reach out across the world. . ."

Gary Murray's widening circles must begin quite literally in a train-yard in Bellevue, Ohio, where his house sits. He has traveled a bit in the eastern half of the US, but has never yet been west of Chicago. Via the telephone, the imagery of his surroundings is described, while trains are heard in the background, as they obey their time-schedule, rumbling over clanking metal tracks. The industrial pounding of locomotives rattles by, and shakes the foundation of the house. As early as 6:30 in the morning, Murray might be found on the porch, getting ready for his job at the local library, already lighting up a cigarette, beginning his daily competition with the chimneys of the local factories. He watches his Christmas present - a dog named Verbatim - frolic in the midwinter snow. It is a zany little dog, I'm told. The dog makes widening circles. Murray takes it all in, drags a puff of smoke over the telephone.

A fine-arts major, he draws and paints, writes poems, and makes songs whose main vehicle is the band LN. Consistently, LN creates somber, heartfelt, and gorgeously aching songs about the many points between birth and death. The California-based independent label, Velvet Blue Music, has released several of LN's starkly beautiful recordings in the last few years. Murray is also a very close friend of, and plays as part of Jessica Bailiff's band.

The unceasing darling of Velvet Blue, LN generates a lot of love, something that seems to be conversely related to the amount of press they receive. There is no LN website, and one will probably never see the pale glow of any computer monitor. Without even trying, they remain quite enigmatic, elusive, and esoteric. Indie-rock message boards buzz with talk about Murray's gilded music. He relishes the anonymity that comes from being a fairly soft-spoken artiste. Perhaps LN's fans are content with the aura of mystery surrounding their muse-driven songwriter. Then again, those who have heard Gary Murray's music eventually seek out more information about this ascetic musician.

He has been known to walk around Bellevue, Ohio wearing a purple boa around his neck. His bedroom has a collection of honeydew-scented candles. Perhaps he is slightly idiosyncratic, but still very down-to-earth. As a librarian, Murray more than fulfills the role of an ardent bibliophile. Books are devoured with frequency - mostly the prose of Literary Nobel Prize winners, or poets like Rainer Maria Rilke - which to anyone else might be little more than a self-imposed, rigorous action of self-discipline. His selection d'jour is a book by Isaac Bashevis Singer, set to a backdrop of melodies of Perry Blake's music playing on the stereo.

The hefty reading lists do not influence his lyrics any more or less than the lyrics of other musicians. "The music I listen to is very literary and very poetic," he muses, thus suggesting that his own lyrics could just as well stand on its own without any accompanying music. The song lyrics to "Christmas Tiger" attest well to his poetic bent. "Leave me alone, I can walk by myself/I don't need a crutch of love this time/sing my song loud enough to drown out all your screams/and I won't be a Christmas tiger/I won't sit on my hands /and I won't be your fool."

Getting Murray to comment on his own songs is akin to pulling teeth. "What I put into my songs is true, and I just want the music to stand on its own." It could be said that LN makes thinking-man's tunes. While it would be easy to just get lost in the sleepy, dark and dreamy quality that is his signature, there are still concepts to grapple with, and ideas to chew on. He grooms the surreal sonic landscapes that might suggest electronic origins, but which are generated with muted, droning guitar washes, and looped oddities. This is music that bears the subtle markings of his fondness for Bark Psychosis, The Cocteau Twins, Joni Mitchell, Slowdive, The Czars, and Adam Again. "Most of the people that influence me are people around me. Steve from Au Revoir Borealis, Jessica Bailiff. Denny, Nate, Casey, Torey - just people in general." He is also heavily influenced by writers like T.S. Elliott and C.S. Lewis, and Frederick Buechner.

Despite his decidedly highbrow taste in reading material, and music there is a laid-back quality to him, which often yields witty anecdotes, blurted out amid the trademark raspy laughter of a chain-smoker. Among the prizewinning stories are the surreal happenings of a recent road-trip to Nashvegas, and the time in Grand Rapids where he had an interesting run-in with a 'beer-troll.'

"I may not ever complete the last one, but I give myself to it . . ."

Ten years ago, Gary Murray and Nate Abel played in a band whose name is of no great consequence. Shortly after that first project fizzled out, Abel and Murray teamed up with Denny Kopp and Torey Freeman as Vacuum Star. At some point, Freeman left, and Casey VanSickle joined on bass. The band as such, still lasted four or five years. Fans of LN might be surprised, if not flat-out shocked, to find out that the style of music that Vacuum Star played was nothing short of nihilistic in comparison to the softer, gentler oeuvre that Murray is known for now. "Vacuum Star was insane noise punk-rock, very crass, but very philosophical. Very punk oriented, but we never used distortion pedals; it was all dissonant noise, very Sonic Youth-y, very abstract, but still very driving." Doing shows on the 'Toledo-circuit for four or five years gave them experience which translated well into their current embodiment as LN. When Murray moved to Bowling Green to pursue his fine arts degree, he kept writing music, even though Vacuum Star was dissolving slowly. All that ended up happening is a gradual shift in gears. The music that Murray was writing on his own became the music that the others would rehearse with him on weekends when he came home from school. LN found its shape and sound over time. Freeman is now the only original member who is still not involved with Murray, which also demonstrates the closeness and longevity of the band, through many breakups and rebirths.

LN has thus far yielded Cool September Skies, Plum Brook, Imaginary Cars, and Novel. "There are a few songs on Cool September Skies that I think are good songs, but I didn't have a clue. It was the first time I set foot in the studio. It was a whole new world for me to explore, and the band didn't know what they were doing either. It was pretty much just a live recording, and I would have liked to do a lot more studio wizardry. Maybe someday we'll go back and re-record a lot of the old material."

Murray's personal favorite, is Plum Brook, at least considering production and overall quality of sound. However, Novel might just be the album that really garnered notice from fans and critics. "Novel just went through the roof. I still don't understand it. I've gotten lots of feedback - even from people all over the world. Got some email from people in England who said something like 'Your music is really lovely on a Sunday afternoon after a nice roast.'"

Presently the upcoming album is in the works, but the band has not yet set foot in the studio. In fact, all the information that can be culled from Murray are scattered details that elude the inquisitive mind of the journalist, merely hinting at the inner workings of LN. "Oh, it's going to be sad. It's going to be the saddest record ever. Actually, it's a little more hopeful, throughout, rather than tied together by a string of hope like the last one. Hints of a brighter day. But it also contains some of the darkest songs I've ever written." Part of this process involves recording approximately thirty-five songs, which are already written, and as many as twenty-six of them exist as four-track recordings. That batch will be narrowed down to its final line-up and re-recorded in the studio. But this is a project just now taking shape. There is no release date, no title, nothing to discuss yet.

All things considered, he is very sure that he owes a debt of gratitude to his label, to whom Murray is nothing but grateful. "LN would not be, if it weren't for Velvet Blue Music. I would never have pursued music farther if [VBM's owner] Cloud hadn't jumped on the demo that I gave him. He's so supportive. He's LN's biggest fan. It's nice to have your label be that supportive and boisterous and vocal about it."

While the band has done their fair share of local shows, and done some tours, he has some reservation about playing live. "A lot of times I feel odd about playing shows. I was always really apprehensive about the show context, because a lot of the places were just bars and stuff, but you know that the majority of the crowd are there to get drunk or pick up on a guy or girl. They don't really care about the music. But the last few shows, the crowd has mostly been there to see the band, and that's been wonderful. Then again, I'm not that big of a fan of playing live shows, because you're trying to regurgitate an emotion that's already been recorded once on acetate."

"I circle around God, that primordial tower. . ."

God. Murray has a very strong, and definitive Christian faith which at times shows through the gossamer layers of his musical expressions. "Faith gives me the platform from which I view the world. It defines the universe that I walk through, and I try to keep true to that. That's about all I can say." While he is not reluctant to speak of his beliefs, he maintains that he does not want to be lumped in with whatever stereotype one gets from the words 'Christian music.' "I don't believe in a lot of that kind of music. I think it [tends to be] washed over, glossy dribble. I don't know what else to say, without getting offensive, and I don't want to be offensive. I'm not saying that [Christian bands] are bad people or that what they do is bad, but as far as art goes, it's just factory. Very uniform, and formulated. It's just to make cash. Most of the stuff I'm associated with, outside of that scene, the majority of music fans who are into LN are secular. I kind of stick with that, and obviously, working with Jessica Bailiff also blurs the edges a bit. To the listener, my faith shouldn't matter, as long as the songs are presented in a true way. Like Low. Low has achieved secular underground-god status, and their Mormon faith has never infringed upon them as far as I know. And it shouldn't. Anyone who appreciates the music for what it is, doesn't really matter what the songwriter believes. That's why I avoid articles. I don't ever want to be considered a Christian band."

"I have been circling for thousands of years, and I still don't know, am I falcon, a storm, or a great song?"

LN's music is often categorized as 'sad songs.' By proxy, Gary Murray might come across as sad. This is noticeably confusing to him. Even in speaking of his next batch of songs, he described them as being "the saddest songs ever." Still, he doesn't care for this constant stereotype. "It is sad music, but more hopeful. I'm a walking contradiction. I am a very melancholy person at times. I keep to myself a lot. Jessica Bailiff named me The Lonely Artists Club." Certainly, the delivery of the songs has an overtone of melancholy, with such soft, weepy guitar, hushed vocals, and occasionally tear-inducing lyrics. He is convinced that he doesn't intentionally strive to be sad in his art. Simultaneously, he's a self-confessed hermit at times. "I go see shows and bands, and I'm usually sitting alone in a corner somewhere. That's just me." His closest circle of friends consists of fellow band members, his family, and a handful of others who are privy to his inner life. " I don't know why everybody says that LN's music is so sad?" It is suggested that perhaps it's the delivery and tone of the music that gives people that somber association. He agrees that this might be the case, but still airs his frustration at being labeled as sad. Once during a rehearsal, when Kopp was having a hard time musically articulating a certain song, Abel, from behind his drum kit, quipped "Denny, think 'quiet desperation, with a hint of motivation.'" Murray chuckles at this memory, and takes another drag on his cigarette. It could be worse. He could be labeled 'emo.'

Nothing has ever stood in the way of Murray creating music or art. But at times, he's been in situations where he has willfully put them aside to solve a bigger problem. "I've sacrificed for people before, and not gone in the studio, or not gone on tour, or done shows, because we had to take care of someone. There are people in my life that are far more important than putting out another record. I can sacrifice that. I've dealt with it, when Nate had to leave the band. We were on a roll, but had to cancel a whole tour with The Julies and Lassie Foundation, and at the time, I was just thinking that if I couldn't bring Nate along, then I just didn't want to go at all. He had just had a second child, and had a lot of problems with the birth, and there was no way he could leave. He told us to go ahead, and we said, 'No, we're not leaving anyone behind.' As much as our band has fallen apart off and on, we still stay true to each other."

As the last cigarette burns down and the interview comes to a close, Murray admits to being curled up in his bed, ready to drift off to sleep. He will meet the next day, where the consistent rumblings of the train mirror the dedication he's put into his art. Perhaps there isn't an answer to the poem, or maybe there shouldn't be. Murray's dedication to his friends and family, and his loyalty to making quality art and music, together with his long history with LN and the music that has resulted from it has shown that the process of discovery is worth more than the answer itself.