Formed in the multi-cultural hub of London, LIVINGSTON are Beukes Willemse and guitarist / keyboardist Chris van Niekerk from South Africa, drummer Jan Siekmann from Germany and bassist Phil Magee from the UK.
Finding their feet with 2009’s debut “Sign Language” and 2012’s “Fire To Fire” (Universal Music Germany), the band achieved numerous successes including Top 20 in the German Sales Charts and Number 1 on the Amazon & iTunes Rock Charts as well as iTunes Newcomer Album of the Year 2010. Their single “Broken” went to Top 20 and their second single “Go” was the official song for German national broadcaster ZDF during the Winter Olympics of 2010. Their music has also been featured in numerous TV shows. Their single “Human” reached N°4 of the European Charts.
While waiting for their new record “This is a Robbery” to be out, LIVINGSTON are revealing a new song, titled “Through the Peephole”. On this new song, Chris (guitar / keyboards) comments:
“Through the Peephole, like its sibling, our previous single “Show Me the Money”, is also a bit of a mutant that has come a long way before reaching maturity. It also started its life as a vocal idea that our singer Beukes had written on a kind of a Hip Hop beat. It was around about the same time as a few members in the band were really experimenting with other styles of music in our own time.
And when I mean “other” styles, I mean different from what we as a band considered to be the Livingston style. Beukes would once in a while send me one of his ideas so I can mess around with it and see what comes out, and with this particular idea, same as “Show Me the Money”, it immediately jumped out at me.
But as time went on neither me nor Beukes fully realised the song or brought it to its full potential. I had made one or two versions that I liked, but it wasn’t until one summer when my girlfriend, a couple of close friends and myself were driving to Eilat in southern Israel and we listened to one of those versions in the car, that I fully envisioned what I want to do with the music. The vocal line to me is very playful and kind of loopy-sounding, you know, loopy like circus or carnival music so I really wanted to create a sound scape that compliments this feeling.
I kept the idea in the back of my mind for quite a while after and finally when we had finished all the other tracks on the album, late at night on a whim, I put together all the music and surprised the guys with it a few days later when it was done. It is the last track that snuck in on the album and I think it’s a really unique gem. Now if you’re wondering what “Through the Peephole” is about, then the best way to find out is to take a drive / walk / whatever… and listen to it loud.”
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KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 