LDL are Steve Butler, Charlie Irvine and Dot Reid. They recorded their first album for Siren/Virgin in 1989, produced in the U.S. by Stewart Levine (best known for his hit albums with Simply Red). The album was received as lush, glossy, transatlantic rock and the band felt artistically compromised by the project, parting company with Siren in 1991. Since then, five independently produced albums have appeared - moodier affairs, of tersely controlled fragility. In the intervening years the trio have published and produced a roster of other artists from their own studios in Scotland. 

After fifteen years of creative collaboration, LDL are well versed in telling each other when they have had a great idea and when they haven't. 'We kind of know what is likely to work, what will suit Steve's voice and what each of us will like - it's like knowing what to cook for dinner.' In the autumn of 2002, 'Last Place on The Map' - with its striking cover by artist Richard Nicholson - emerged, to be followed one year later by a collection of instrumental works designed for meditation - 'As I Went Down' 

Once again in this new work there is an 'elegiac beauty' (Melody Maker), and 'capacious ambience' (Vox) which 'gives shape to the silence, and substance to the emptiness' (Irish Times). Hinting at a musical spectrum of influences stretching from Talk Talk and Blue Nile to Arvo Part, this is meditative, reflective music, maturing with the passage of time, repaying the attentions of the listener. 'We're trying to make music for people who are moved by beauty that comes in a slow filter,' says Reid, 'It's about capturing a moment of imagination, the muse, something sensual - something that gets away from words.'



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