2013
End of February, the single Gallowdance sees the light of the day on Berlin Label Aufnahme + Wiedergabe.
Although the first edition was just limited to 300 copies and sold out very quickly, it soon became a cult song - being played on high rotation in the clubs.
In March, Lebanon Hanover played for the first time live shows in America and Mexico, followed by several festival gigs in summertime in France, Lithuania, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Netherlands and Germany.
Also, around that time, an aesthetic black and white video for the song I Believe You Can Survive was released as a teaser for the forthcoming album.
Beginning of September sees the band performing several dates in Spain, before at the end of the month, the new album Tomb For Two was released – of course once again on Fabrika Records.
Lebanon Hanover´s third studio outing is an iconic record that marks the end of a trilogy of albums released in little more than a year's time, book-ended a period of prolific songwriting and DIY production, that effectively captures a sound reminiscent of the underground music heard circa 1981.
Beside Gallowdance - the 10-track album includes 8 new and unreleased compositions.
This is the music of a rebellion against the digital world of today.
Larissa: “We recorded and mixed all albums so far ourselves. And it was taking quite a lot of time actually. We want to keep the same sound that reminds you of the 80’s, and not something digital. We want to sound like something that you heard back in 1981." (Interview w/ Daniel Olvera)
"And we always try to look very androgynous and sensitive, maybe it just reflects our time. These are dark times - and our music is about to feel that the world is cold, and people been proud to be insensitive. Is about the world getting insensitive and cut off the feelings ..." (Interview w/ Daniel Olvera)
Times are hard for romantics in this century. The world wants us to survive alone, do everything by ourselves and treat people like we don't need them. We find this terribly sad, for we have a very big longing for bonds and true friendships. I think people have become generally way too lazy to even reflect about the separation that is happening at the moment. The internet and smart phones have even made us more lazier and the real passions of life, art, nature, literature and love is just nonexistent. True love is something we really hope survives, but it can only survive when people become more individualistic and self-determined. It's the individuals that make society and I believe that every single one can make a change.” (Interview w/ Paulius Ilius)
After receiving a fantastic response of the American audience in the beginning of the year, Lebanon Hanover decided to go on an America tour again in October, together with Selofan,
But unfortunately, after playing 2 shows in the USA, followed by 2 gigs in Canada, the Bands were refused to enter the USA again.
Because of that, sadly the other 4 planned dates in North America had to be cancelled.
2012
The two didn’t feel good in Berlin so they cancelled that apartment for good - they took their bags and moved into a small apartment in the misty coastal town North Shields. The silence and isolation is what they needed at the time to focus on their music.
In February, shortly before the release of the forthcoming album, Lebanon Hanover released the single and video No.1 Mafioso.
It seemed like, nothing - could stop the creative output of William and Larissa in 2012. Cause directly after the release of The World Is Getting Colder – the couple worked on finishing the next album.
In August 2012 - the next video Northern Lights was produced - filmed by Augenwasser and directed by themselves. which gives us a biographical sight at their bland life at the seashore.
Following up their debut earlier in 2012, Lebanon Hanover exemplified no rest for the weary and wicked with the All Hallows Eve release, of their 2nd album Why Not Just Be Solo. Their sophomore release is a headlong journey into a sonic catharsis.
Expressing honest and intimate emotions without hesitation sees the duo of Larissa Iceglass and William Maybelline evoking rural romanticism and urban decay, the artifice of the modern age, and the beauty of nature and the human condition.
Thematically the album expresses the Rilkean paradox of being an outsider, comfortable with detachment, yet longing for love and affection in a spiraling melancholy. This is the poetry of two souls somberly embracing their loneliness together and apart.
Last not least - end of 2012 - while the band moved back into Williams parents’ house in Sunderland to keep working on the next album to be released in 2013, the forthcoming milestone video Gallowdance was released upfront, and Larissa’s rope necklace soon started to go viral - becoming her trademark for the upcoming year.
2012 was a lonely but very productive year for Lebanon Hanover, as they released two albums and three videos and played around 20 gigs - the next album already in the making!
2011
Constantly moving between Sunderland/Berlin, the band was always working on new tracks.
Larissa: “The moment of creating a song. I absolutely live for the moment you take the microphone, connect with your subconscious, sacrifice yourself to your inner melodies and put all of your heart into a track. Music is the most honest form of art for me, and therefore Lebanon Hanover is the very center of both our lives. It's not just a side project or anything, it's our vocation and we could die for it. We do it merely for ourselves. To entertain was not the most important thing to do at the start, but I have to say that to be faced to face with an audience and to fill the silence of the room with your own words and sounds is very touching and always an exciting experience."
(Interview w/ Paulius Ilius)
After the first gigs in Berlin and Newcastle at the end of 2010, the duo played several more shows in Berlin clubs, as well as first gigs in Netherland and Switzerland.
Lebanon Hanover would emerge from the peak of the world-wide minimal wave revival, with their 2011 split tape with La Fete Triste issued as the catalog debut of Europe’s most ubiquitous Techno-Industrial EBM labels, Aufnahme + Wiedergabe.
This split tape sold out fast - and Lebanon Hanover have been catching the interest of relatively new Greek based record Label Fabrika. And as a result of a mutual meeting at DROP DEAD FESTIVAL # 9 in Berlin, both parties decided to start a cooperation.
Joanna (Fabrika): “2011 we launched our label Fabrika in order primary to enrich our own record collection with vinyls of the new melancholic synth scene, developing at that moment as an underground movement. The bands looked and sounded exciting and had of course no record deals. My impression is that Lebanon Hanover started it all, they were different, and they looked as if they “meant it” as if they had no other choice than making music if you understand what i mean. Being successful, selling records, didn’t cross their minds, they just needed to make music and they made really great music. And then we heard they would play a gig at a festival in Berlin, we got in a plane and in a few hours our small merch table with the very first Fabrika releases was standing at the festivals entrance, a great chance to introduce ourselves as a label really. After a while, some drinks, and interesting conversations, we realized that we were not the only ones impatiently waiting to see them, but that their show was actually the talk of the scene. Suddenly, they were standing in front of our merch table, looking dead serious and fragile at the same time and asking if we could please sell for them a few CDs they burned themselves with some demo tracks and beautifully hand painted covers for as much as we thought would be fair enough for the people. The CDs disappeared in seconds after their mind-blowing set, I think we sold them for 5€ each and are by now worth a great deal more, lucky you if you were there and got it that night. The club was more than packed and totally electrified after their show, somehow, we landed in a small private room and we informed the two midnight creatures about our dream of an independent record label and agreed upon a handshake that this was a matter of a common vision and mutual trust. Funny how simple sometimes those moments appear to be that are actually set to change the course of our lives.”
At the end of 2011 (November) – the video for the song Sand was released as a teaser for the forthcoming first album on Fabrika Records.
2010
Once upon a time, not too long ago, in a small town nearby the Northeastern English shore ... most stories and tales often begin that way - just like in this case.
Larissa Georgiou, (aka Larissa Iceglass), art student from Switzerland, decided on visiting her internet acquaintance, William Morris (aka William Maybelline), during the summer holidays in 2010.
They had befriended each other online at Last FM, and both shared a soft spot for 1980s music videos, as well as a penchant for the beauty of art nouveau aesthetics, exploring British seashores and forests at night. One beautiful day Larissa arrived at the quaint coastal town of Sunderland, not very far from Newcastle.
One needs to know that Sunderland and Newcastle have a rough atmosphere, that affected them a lot. There were times, they have been threatened on the streets and therefore frightened to leave the house. So ultimately, they were staying indoors drinking tea and making music, which led to quite a productive period.
For while the rest of humanity enjoyed the late summer's sunbeams at the beach, the duo quickly realized how well the chemistry between them worked.
So they decided to put their respective musical solo projects on ice to work on songs together.
During this early phase, songs like "Die World", "Einhorn" and "Totally Tot" were recorded within a mere of two or three days. Just like the video for Totally Tot, which they produced and directed themselves during that same week.
Up to this day, these songs reduced clarity is an homage to the early 80s, an era without digitally over-produced music.
No other pairing in the history of Darkwave ever matched the unfettered creativity, resolve, and DIY attitude from the collaboration between the two creative minds that comprise Lebanon Hanover.
And so, just a couple of weeks later, after having taken in quite a bit of Sunderland’s grimness, William went to Berlin to make more music with Larissa.
Very soon after, they decided on the name "Lebanon Hanover", which is actually a town in New Hampshire/USA.
Larissa: "We chose the band name after a town in the US that struck us as quite utopian. Both places have no connection with each other – but if they did, it's a beautiful place we imagine. Simply building a world with the same names is a beautiful idea, as we are quite disoriented in this world, and don't know where we belong."
(Interview w/ Schwarze Presse)
