Lycia: tripping back into the broken days (CD)

Product Description

Mike VanPortfleet says: “Tripping Back Into The Broken Days is our purest release. All the trappings have been stripped away, and it’s just like it was when I started writing music back in the early ‘80s: acoustic guitar and vocals, with me trying to express and escape.”


After a two and a half year retirement from the music industry, Lycia returns with the stark and stripped to the bare bones CD Tripping Back Into The Broken Days. Sparse instrumentation flows with simple and raw, heartfelt songs. The feel of earthy lushness and deep atmospheres prevails. A sad and reflective slice of Americana.


Mike and Tara VanPortfleet revived Lycia to record this set of deeply personal songs. Stripping back the wall of effects-laden guitars and glacial atmospheres that are Lycia’s trademark, the album moves forwards with a style Mike describes as “a treated acoustic/ambient hybrid.”

Tripping Back Into The Broken Days’ vague, yet emotionally strong, theme follows the duo’s move across America, from the cold and gray Ohio winter, to the sun-baked Arizona desert, sprinkled occasionally with warm reflections back to simpler times. With the lines between deep emotions and wide open landscapes blurred, the visions of snow-covered fields & cold winter skies, of open roads & endless plains, of sun-glared views of the desert & oasis, evoke feelings of distant reflection and longing.

Formed in 1988, Lycia played a major role in defining the Darkwave movement of the 1990s, with such influential albums as Ionia (1991), A Day In The Stark Corner (1993) and Cold (1996).


“In the past I’ve written stream-of-consciousness-type lyrics, where the meanings were vague. For the first time, every word means something very specific to me, very personal, a bit like letting the world read my diary. For anyone who knows our history, this release should be very telling.” – Tara VanPortfleet

Tripping Back Into The Broken Days features pre-mastering treatments by ambient legend Steve Roach and mastering by Roger King.

This item is out of print, and here for historical reasons.