Music:
Member Since: 12/13/2006
Band Website: magnatune.com/artists/lvxnova
Band Members: Bobby DeVito -- guitars, noises, and engineering/production
Mike "Sonic" Meengs -- all synths, samples, engineering, production, weird noises, random samples, lush washes, nearly everything but bobby d's parts
Brian Stevenson -- spoken word lyrics and vocals
Curtis H Hayes -- Producer and knob twirler for all guitar production and mixing, and a few odd noises
George Harris -- Panda Productions -- mastering and editing and guitar advice
Mark Prator -- Morrisound Studios -- final mastering and sweetening for the Miramar release
Tom Mehren -- A&R from Miramar, and his eyeball is on our album art
Michael Boydstun -- Video Director of the LVX NOVA video
DISCOGRAPHY:
LVX NOVA -- indie release -- 1500 copies, green colored CD, very rare :-)
LVX Nova -- LVX Nova -- MIRAMAR/BMG both USA and Worldwide 230095
Contimune -- CD single -- MIRAMAR/BMG
Best New Age Vol 6 -- Priority Records -- 1997
Smooth Jazz Summer Sounds 2 CD set -- MIRAMAR/BMG -- 1996
Miramar Collection III -- MIRAMAR/BMG 1996
Influences: eno, kraftwerk, gary numan, tangerine dream, aphex twin, pink floyd, system 7, steve hillage, banco de gaia, orbital, the orb, all ambient electronic dreamers....
ATTENTION RADIO AND PRESS: please contact us for any inquiries. We would be glad to email you full audio versions or MP3s in any flavour you like for your shows. Please help us to re-release this music into the world.
(excerpt from the bio)......during these halcyon college days, DeVito managed to secure a job working for BMG Distribution as their College Marketing Rep, a position he held for three years that allowed him to get "real-world" experience in the music industry. At New College, each student must write a Master's Thesis in order to graduate, and Bobby decided on an ambitious project -- to combine his written thesis with a full length album of ambient music. Starting with Erik Satie, and ending up with modern day composers such as Aphex Twin, DeVito's thesis covers the dawn and progression of ambient music, the ways ambient music is distinguished from Muzak, and the sociological implications of ambient music listener reception by touching on the theories of philosopher Theodor Adorno. DeVito's thesis lives on in Hyperreal's "Epsilon Ambient Music Archive".
The CD portion of his thesis is entitled LVX Nova. This project was a collaboration between DeVito and noted electronic composer Mike Meengs. The thesis project was a success, and DeVito graduated from New College in 1996.
After graduation, DeVito set out to get the project released commercially. After releasing the album independently and garnering over 60 pages of press worldwide, three labels presented offers to release the album: R&S Records in Belgium, Subharmonic Records in NYC, and MIRAMAR Records in Seattle. After entertaining all the offers, DeVito decided to sign with MIRAMAR, home to one of his biggest influences Tangerine Dream, and also a part of the BMG Distribution family. LVX Nova received tons of press, critical accolades, and made it to several "top ten releases" lists. In addition, the CD won several awards, including the 1999 "JAMMY" award in Florida for best electronic act.
However, with the instability of MIRAMAR after motion picture company UNAPIX bought out the label in 1999, LVX Nova became label-less. The band recorded an entire second album, with it slated to be mixed by none other than Alan Parsons! However, the album remains unmixed and stored on the shelf.
Holed up in a loft in Hyde Park Tampa, and later Miami Florida, DeVito began to create music entirely for the sake of the process and basically to listen to himself. Relying on timbre, repetition, and space, the music of stargarden ranges from drifting ambient space music to beat driven electronica.
Mike, never one to stay still long, has done several other projects since LVX Nova, notably the geniusly clever electronic rock hiphop act D'YEA, his own chilled out blend of ambient techno called "Turtle Bend", and plenty of other production and remix work for other recording artists and clients such as McDonalds. He still lives in St Pete surrounded by every synth he has ever owned since the late 1970s.
Sounds Like: perhaps david gilmour having tea with The Orb, and deciding to do a few tracks....on acid.
interview from 1997
Hello. Red Magazine would like to thank you for your time with us and wish you much future success. The electronic music scene prides itself on its stylistic diversity. Lvx Nova has achieved a unique sound without succumbing to the stereotypical constraints of defined styles. What musicians have influenced you?
Mike:
Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger... also Ted Nugent. Oh yeah, Offspring...
Bobby:
John Cage, David Gilmour, Herman Hesse.
Your fusion of electronica with guitar has an acid-jazz flavor to it. Many electronic artists today that use guitar lean towards an industrial sound, but Lvx Nova resists that temptation. Do you think industrial music is eshausting itself?
Mike:
Is Throbbing Gristle on Tour?
Bobby:
I think trent Reznor put the final word on industrial music with The Downward Spiral.
Your music is very directional, taking listeners to another place. Now that you've been signed with Miramar Records, what direction do you think the band will take now?
Mike:
We tried to sign with Maverick, but Madonna didn't want to sign with us. We like being rejected by Madonna, it's as close as we're going to get to having sex with her.
Bobby:
We almost signed with R&S in belgium, but after being wined, dined, and left behind, we signed with a great label-- Miramar Records home of Tangerine Dream among other cool electronic artists. BMG is distributing us, and I feel really confident that our CD will get some attention from the mainstream listeners as well as the electronicaheads.
Since achieving a certain degree of success, are you less afraid to take risks? Many times, the first release by up-and-coming musicians is very calculated, and true experimentation comes only after the artists have earned their first paycheck.
Bobby:
We did the first CD just for ourselves, and for my thesis on ambient music. It wasn't done in any sort of calculated way. We were both in other more "serious" bands that were pop-oriented, and we got together to do this music for fun and ourselves. It's great that people have been responding so well to the CD and the live show-which is ALL live, no tapes.
Mike:
We can't stop. We started and we're never going to stop. There ain't no before or after shit.
What kinds of things do you look for when sampling? What is it about the sound of a doorbell, for example, that makes you want to sample it?
Mike:
Sounds sounds sounds noise noise noise...
Bobby:
Anything that catches my ear is game. John Cage was a big formative influence on me, as was my college music professor Steve Miles. Sampling and editiing is the latest form of composition.
Thank you Mike Meengs and Bobby DeVito. We enjoyed talking with you.
Interview by Mike Slansky
August 1997
Record Label: Magnatune.com
Type of Label: Indie
