Lost Under Heaven on Love Hates What You Become

"You could say, 'I told you so, apocalypse came,' but where does that get you?"

Lost Under Heaven saw it coming. In 2016, Ellery Roberts and Ebony Hoorn released Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing, a scorched-earth treatise on the information age. It was a nervy affair, fraught with drama, that musically ran the gamut from anthemic tension (I&I, Unites) to thumping, end-of-days Auto-Tune ($ORO). Brexit hadn’t happened yet. The world was still holding its collective breath on Donald Trump. And yet here were these two soothsayers in Amsterdam, offering up the sort of deeply unflattering reflection of the world that none of us wanted to reckon with until we had to.

"We were met with this blank-faced indifference," chuckles Roberts grimly. He’s sitting, alongside Hoorn, in the back corner of a sleek, modern Manchester bar. It seems, somehow, wrong; from the start, Lost Under Heaven have specialised in turning over the stone and seeing what crawls out. Roberts especially remains a thoroughly enigmatic figure, the man who had the world at his feet with WU LYF, only to decide that it wasn’t for him. He disappeared afterwards.

"We were playing across Europe, and it was right around the time of the Occupy movement – all that cultural dialogue – and we thought the songs were really going to connect. But they didn’t." The pair had to regroup and think about what it was they were trying to say – politically, socially, soulfully. Roberts is from Manchester, Hoorn from Amsterdam, and they’d lived in the Dutch capital idealistically – "happily in line with our own lifestyle choices" – until, almost as if to herald the beginning of a new era of the band, reality came calling.

"Amsterdam’s an expensive place to live, for a start," says Roberts, as he begins to elucidate their relocation to Manchester. "And it doesn’t have the same culture of music as here. It’s hard to find people to play with. We lived there for six years and never really broke out of this one little art scene."

Manchester offered collaborators and inspiration, but the day-to-day reality post-Brexit was bleak. "We moved back in October of 2016, and straight away it felt strange," explains Hoorn. "There was a sense that Britain, in general, had lost sight of an optimistic future. The tremors of what was to come on our first record had kind of been realised, but nobody knew what to do about it."

The pair could’ve pursued the same ideas as on their debut album, vindicated now that circumstances were as grim as they’d suggested, but they didn’t see the value in it. Instead, their sophomore LP, Love Hates What You Become, is a reflection on the human condition, an album that places importance on compassion and empathy first and everything else second. "After WU LYF, I separated myself culturally," Roberts explains. "And then, after that, I was probably living in self-imposed naivety. I came back with these protest songs, and they didn’t seem to catch the ears of the people – they didn’t digest it. We put that sense of idealism to motivate people aside. This record is much more honest."

By their own admission, Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing had begun as a sketch of a Roberts' solo LP; Hoorn’s musical contributions mainly involved backing vocals, as she continued to work towards her art degree. Now, on Love Hates What You Become, she’s front and centre, not just taking the lead on the likes of Bunny’s Blues but actually crafting her own character within the lyrics.

"This time, one of us would have an idea and we’d run with it from there between us," says Hoorn, who learned to play bass as the record came together. "It was a real collaboration, with both of us contributing ideas."

"What I really missed after WU LYF was human connection," adds Roberts. "I didn’t want to have to make another album with a computer." Accordingly, once the tracks were ready, the duo decamped to Los Angeles to record them with John Congleton (St. Vincent, Swans), a man who – on current form – might well be the sharpest producer on the planet. Not that Roberts was especially enamoured with the Californian excursion. "I thought we were going to Texas," he laments. "But John has just moved to LA. He’s turned 40 and wanted to get out of his comfort zone... so I suppose we followed him out of it."

Congleton is a straight-talker and left the band under no illusion about what they were in for. "He’s like Steve Albini," says Hoorn. "The albums aren’t 'produced by', they’re 'recorded by', and he’s more of an engineer than anything else."

It seems like an improbable match for a band so single-minded about what it is they’re trying to achieve, and sure enough Roberts confirms that heads were butted as Love Hates What You Become came together. "There were a couple of times where he played that card," he recalls. "You know, a couple of times where he said, 'I know best because I’m the big producer, and who are you?' and I guess there were moments where I wish I’d pushed back against him, but maybe I don't know what's best for me at times. John's thing was mainly, 'can you be present in the moment?'"

Thor Harris of Swans lent his percussive talents to Love Hates What You Become, and the band have secured a touring drummer to round out the current line-up to a three-piece; after feeling as if the live shows behind Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing hadn't quite done them justice, the new iteration of Lost Under Heaven is already well up and running, with a slew of UK shows under their belt last year. More than that, though, they're putting out an album that's an accurate reflection of their worldview, one that looks for the positives in an ever more turbulent world.

"We made this album in 2017, so it's reflective of the environment in which it was conceived," explains Roberts. "It's interesting, now, how everybody seems to be really right-on. Brexit's happening, and everything's reactive. It seems like everybody's fighting the good fight, which isn't how it felt a year or two ago when we were developing this music. It's like we've been developing a character all along, and now we're putting it out into the world. That's encapsulated in the title – who have we become?"

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Love Hates What You Become is released 18 Jan via Mute Records
Lost Under Heaven play Nice 'n' Sleazy, Glasgow, 27 Jan