Product Description
2 She Follows Rain (2024 remaster)
3 Zuff (2024 remaster)
4 Magic Memory (2024 remaster)
5 Elevate Her (2024 remaster)
6 Shine… (2024 remaster)
7 …To Sleep (2024 remaster)
8 Alone Without (2024 remaster)
9 Human (2024 remaster)
10 Closer Closer (2024 remaster)
11 Daystar (2024 remaster)
12 Disassembly (2024 remaster)
13 Diamond Rain Drain (2024 Mix)
14 Letter from the Moonbase (2024 Mix)
15 Disassembly (2024 Remix)
RIYL: The Chameleons, The Cure, Beach House, ACTORS, TRAITRS
Post-Punk.com wrote in 2018: Definitive Dreaminess: 100 Essential Dream Pop Releases.
After shortening their name, lowsunday pushed their Chameleons-informed sonic experiments even further, expanding their range and honing in their craft. As such, elesgiem is a powerful, sonic journey that unfolds over the course of 12 mercurial tracks including the driving “Alone Without,” the crestfallen “Daystar,” and the bubbling “Zuff.” — Frank Deserto
On the 25th anniversary of their elesgiem album, lowsunday creates a sparkling remastered edition that includes two previously unreleased bonus tracks from back in the day. 1999’s elesgiem is glorious! With shoegaze in the midst of a revival thanks to attention bringing together fifty-something rockers, TikToking teens, and new young bands finding solace in the lush sound, Pittsburgh PA’s lowsunday returns as a late-90s originator of the sound. The 4-piece act brought something new and refreshing to the darkwave scene. Their effortlessly smart and catchy songs tread the sonic waters with screeching guitars and layer upon layer of arsenic-laced melodies crowned with bittersweet and emotive vocals from songwriter Shane Sahene.
At the height of the band’s success, in 2001 Projekt issued a second-edition of their self-released elesgiem. lowsunday was comprised of founding member, guitarist/vocalist Shane Sahene, Bobby Spell (bass), Shawn Bann (guitar/keyboard) & A.T. Vish (drums). After going on hiatus a few years after elesgiem’s release, longtime bandmates and writing partners Sahene and Spell have returned and continue to write and record material for an upcoming lowsunday album.
Sahene reflects, “Bobby and I are thrilled that this remastered version is available; thrilled that it could be an introduction to our music for those who missed it the first time. The music has been unavailable digitally for so long. It will be a great way to reconnect with fans from back in the day. Man! We loved those days! The dreampop and shoegaze world was much smaller than it is today but still vibrant. We felt so fortunate to be a part of it. To see where the genre has gone is amazing and still inspiring.”
Spell takes over the thought, “We constantly hear new music that really grabs us. I think the genre blew up recently for all of the reasons that we fell in love with it in the first place — the music is very escape oriented, often melancholy and sincere but somehow uplifting. And really, the sound is a reflection of what’s happening inside. It has always brought Shane and I comfort.”
As one of the bands who pushed the American Shoegaze / Post-Punk second wave to new heights, lowsunday returns, reconnected with where they began with dedication and love for “wall of sound” guitars and atmospheres, melancholic vocals and hook-ridden melodies.
Alternative Press included lowsunday within 100 bands you need to know in 2002.
Revue Magazine wrote in 2001: Who would expect to hear that one of the greatest ’80s Brit rock bands is actually from Pittsburgh?! OK, lowsunday wasn’t around in the ’80s and the band is not British, but they could easily be mistaken for something similar. Their self-proclaimed genre is “shoegaze: dreampop: ethereal: ambient: indie: darkwave: darkpop:” …and they couldn’t be more right on. The band’s latest release, elesgiem, has 12 tracks of progressive indie pop that border goth with sometimes gloomy vocals. In fact, vocalist Shane Sahene seems to be lost somewhere between agony and ecstasy, fighting for equilibrium. In songs like “elevate her,” which is probably my favorite track, Sahene spits out lyrics like “It’s unbelievable/how this day has went/distortion/more than the usual/loved and lost” in a drab manner that actually gives you hope. This is perfect music to listen to through headphones on a warm, sunny day when you’re alone. Solitude.
Tootoot.fm wrote in 2001: lowsunday is not your typical Projekt band. While the atmospheres on elesgiem occasionally parallel those of other bands on the darkwave label’s roster, the quartet’s erudite energy will appeal to longtime Anglophiles (think Catherine Wheel or House of Love), shoegazer fans and gothic contingents alike. The fact that such a thoughtful band are headquartered in a city where decrepit classic rock continues to loom large makes lowsunday even more special. Simply put, lowsunday is modern indie rock brilliance. They fuse melancholic 4AD type textures with catchy pop melodies that instantly hook you, and from then on there is no point in even trying to escape the smoky wonderland created by this band, and you won’t want to. Their alluring melodies and arrangements are so inviting. They have great potential, and they have the chance to be THE band to usher forth a mainstream interest in gloomy pop.
Starvox.net wrote in 2001: Pittsburgh’s lowsunday are currently at the epicenter of attention within the dark music scene. After being signed to Projekt records to re-release their second full-length album elesgiem, there is a lot of excitement and promise about the direction of the band’s career. It is my pleasure to see the band finally achieve the status they whole-heartedly deserve, as myself and dark music fans all over Pittsburgh have faithfully followed the band for years on the local club circuit. To see our hometown shoegaze heroes make good is truly an honour for us, but most importantly, for the rest of the dark music world who will now get a chance to enjoy what the band has to offer.
Insiderone.net wrote in 2001: Their guitars conjure visions of ripples spreading from a pebble’s point of impact at the center of a pond, while their vocalist wholeheartedly rejects the self-defeating irony that made the ’90s such a crashing bore and reaches for portentously huge, grandly echoing notes as ride-cymbals crash over and over.
Projekt release: November 1, 2024
Original self-release: 1999. Projekt re-release 2001
SHORT:
Reviews Editor –
From Skylight
Elesgiem (2024 Remaster) begins with “Wallpaper Room,” showing how well the remaster maintains the band’s original spirit while giving the production a more modern-day vibe. The instruments have lots of room in the mix, with dreamy, reverb-heavy soundscapes standing out against harsh guitars and rough drumming. The outcome is an intriguing mix of lo-fi aesthetics with cleaner, more contemporary production. The post-punk nature is even more apparent on “Zuff,” which features a dark, dominant bass line and backing synthesisers that create a hazy, dreamy mood. The vocals are given an equally fascinating treatment, with the production playing with tonal frequencies and providing another dimension to the album’s shoegaze-based dream pop character.
The darker side of the record is seen on “Closer Closer,” when an intentionally muddy surface becomes an integral part of the aesthetic rather than a production mistake. The fuzzy guitars and deep soundscapes bring out a sense of melancholy, while the contemporary mixing lets the individual sections preserve enough separation to keep the song from becoming buried in the mix. “Letter from the Moonbase” takes another unexpected turn, adopting a spoken-word technique that places minimal emphasis on traditional vocal melody. Its No Wave attitude combines with dreamy guitars and synthesisers to give the impression of reading a melancholy message from another realm. The track’s odd arrangement emphasises the album’s experimental nature and shows that Lowsunday is more concerned with atmosphere than traditional songwriting methods.
What makes this 2024 remaster so successful is that the lo-fi style was not lost in favour of a cleaner sound. Instead, the production keeps its original underground spirit while looking more polished, expansive, and modern. The album’s identity includes periodic roughness, muddy sounds, strong reverb, dark bass, and raw guitars, all of which contribute to a sound world that falls somewhere between post-punk, shoegaze, dream pop, and experimental rock. Elesgiem therefore feels less like an attempt to modernise an old recording and more like a careful restoration of its original personality, allowing new listeners to experience its underground atmosphere while also providing long-time fans with a remastered version that still sounds distinctly Lowsunday.
Reviews Editor –
From The Manc Review
lowsunday – were a band comprised of founding member Shane Sahene (guitarist/vocalist), Bobby Spell (bass), Shawn Bann (guitar/keyboard) & A.T. Vish (drums), hail from Pittsburgh, USA and whose 1999 album elesgiem has been remastered and was re-released in 2024 to commemorate its 25th anniversary. An impressive album, elesgiem has been selected as The Manc Review’s “Album of The Month.”
If you have ever wondered where the visceral vampires reside or where the sombre spirits linger and dissipate into apparitional air, then listening to elesgiem by lowsunday may offer you the answers and provide the key to their secret hideaways. It’s a sublime work of art, that immediately transports you to the nebulous places of indie-rock, levitating in post-punk purgatory, whilst scrawling through the misty meadows of synth-pop and inhaling the dry ice of new wave. Comprising 15 mesmerising tracks, elesgiem evokes a full gamut of emotion that transcends a sense of moonbeam melancholy, and esoteric elation, which intertwines with the multi-faceted genres of alternative rock.
It’s an ethereal delight, an album that unlocks the pathways, the gauzy gateways and pensive portals of post-punk, that have been hidden and immortalised in a vault of innovation and nostalgia. Originally released in 1999, elesgiem has been remastered and alchemised for a new generation, whilst realigning in the current celestial skies of ethereal–rock. As an album, elesgiem, takes you on a musical voyage lying low in the seabed of shoegaze, colliding with the effervescent bubbles of dreampop, whilst ebbing and flowing through, the fuzzy foam of neo-psychedelia. It’s a full-on affair, that showcases the high calibre of musicianship of lowsunday.
Sonically seductive, elesgiem unravels its many layers with a cool breeze of beguiling beauty and haunting mysticism. It’s a hypnotic haze, a transfiguration of seasonal shifts, ethereal enlightenment, streaming a spectrum of states, that embodies a whole range of musical mutations. Through the aloof vocals, elesgiem orbits in telescopic solitude, peering through the lens of glamour and glitz, amidst the floating debris, falling from the crestfallen clouds.
Here is an album that slow-burns a billion light years away on a frequency of fuzzy bliss and dwells in the arcane ambience of goth-rock. Through the sheer guitar dexterity, subtle shifts and pensive preening, lowsunday redefines the bonafide goth band, whilst opening up the airways for a variety of sub-genres. From the razor riffs, to the shimmery strums to the spectral synths, brooding basslines and tribal beats. lowsunday raises the bar, creating an album that jams in the Batcave’s of neo-folk, spinning from the shadows of art-rock, whilst navigating through the wilderness of darkwave.
Think The Jesus and Mary Chain, Beach House, The Psychedelic Furs, The Horrors, The Cure, The Chameleons, Mazzy Star, Cocteau Twins, early Verve, Bauhaus, The Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine and The Velvet Underground, forming a cosmic cult, an ancestral alliance of ingenious showmanship, reviving the impressionistic artistry, abstract motifs, and blended palettes that colourise the darkness from a distant horizon.
Reviews Editor –
From Chain DLK
The shimmering melancholia of lowsunday’s Elesgiem has aged not like wine, but like a haunting letter tucked into a forgotten drawer – its emotions vivid, its truths undimmed, its beauty strangely more poignant with the passing years. Originally released in 1999, Elesgiem carved a space in the American shoegaze and darkwave landscape, a Pittsburgh dream alight with echoes of The Chameleons and The Cure, now reawakened in this 2024 remaster to find its place amidst the genre’s latest revival.
For an album so enraptured by longing, Elesgiem remains remarkably alive. The remaster unveils sonic layers that were always there but never quite heard – an intricate lattice of shimmering guitars, velvety basslines, and Shane Sahene’s vocals, suspended between despair and deliverance. Tracks like “Wallpaper Room” and “Zuff” feel like sighs from a past life, their arsenic-tinged melodies seeping through headphones like ghostly visitations.
“Elevate Her”, a standout, channels gothic heartbreak into luminous resilience, with Sahene lamenting, “It’s unbelievable / how this day has went”, a line so achingly mundane it becomes transcendental. Meanwhile, “Daystar” is a crestfallen nocturne, its shimmering guitars conjuring the light of a fading sun. The album’s apex, “Disassembly”, sprawls across nearly 11 minutes, a sprawling elegy that feels less like a song and more like a place – a foggy cathedral of sound.
The inclusion of two previously unreleased tracks, “Diamond Rain Drain” and “Letter from the Moonbase”, feels like opening windows to forgotten rooms. The former dances with dreamy effervescence, while the latter’s spacey introspection roots it firmly in the post-shoegaze ethos. These tracks aren’t just bonuses – they are revelations, as if the monolith of Elesgiem had been whispering secrets all along.
This remastered edition not only revitalizes lowsunday’s work but reasserts their quiet significance in the American shoegaze canon. Longtime collaborators Shane Sahene and Bobby Spell reflect with palpable joy on the genre’s unexpected renaissance, a testament to the enduring comfort found in melancholic melodies. As Sahene notes, “The dreampop world was smaller then, but vibrant”, and in Elesgiem, you feel that vibrancy pulse anew.
To listen to Elesgiem in 2024 is to stand at the confluence of nostalgia and renewal. The record remains tethered to its late-90s origins – a time when shoegaze’s ethereal fog threatened to dissipate altogether – but it also pulses with contemporary relevance. It’s as if lowsunday crafted an album too early for its time, waiting patiently for the world to catch up.
Elesgiem is an elegy for the lost and a hymn for the hopeful, a “smoky wonderland” of sound where agony and ecstasy twirl in perpetual embrace. For fans of dreampop’s woozy escapism and post-punk’s cathartic edge, this remaster is not merely a revisit but a rediscovery, a reminder of how it feels to be caught, once again, in the aching beauty of sound.
Essential for: nostalgists of shoegaze’s second wave, newcomers lured by TikTok’s retro allure, and anyone seeking solace in bittersweet melodie! -Vito Camarretta
Reviews Editor –
From The Big Takeover #95
Moving effortlessly between ethereal darkwaved shoegaze, post-punked guitar sharpness, and dream pop driven dynamics (sometimes within the sonic walls of a single song) lowsunday created their own world to get lost in on this 1999 album (here remastered). While some sounds pull towards The Chameleons, or early ’80s Modern English/Cocteau Twins, there are also shiny sparkles of jangly guitar that reverberate, rising against the ethereal vocal drift – like in the expansive breadth of “She Follows Rain.” But there’s also the Psychedelic Furs drive of “Alone Without” and the Cure-touched basslines that pulsate throughout. This poetic darkness moves, layered with shadows and light, sending delicious shivers of goth nostalgia through the speakers. -Marcel Feldman