A dark weaiy figure tredges along an unknown cold desert and suddenly this music weeps from deep within him; deep within his soul. A sound of true expression and unique all its own. The owner of this meloncholy angelicness is Mike Van Portfleet. The band is Lycia. He started Lycia as a solo project in '88 with his collection of singles called Wake on the Orphanage label. But before this there were struggles to get to his weaping seraphim.

"I had played quite a number of bands starting back in 1981.. Nothing developed with any of the bands and I really considered giving up music. That's how frustrated I was, but I decided to give it one more try... This time with me really calling the shots.That's basically Lycia's start. I also wanted it to be very varied and always be in one way or another electronic

Being loved quickly by the Goth scene and by the Projekt label, Lycia came out with it's second LP called lonial. This LP carried the whispering vocals urther down a cold spiral of dark emotions. Mike tries to describe his approach to his lyrics.

"The lyrics are pretty much me sitting there writing down whatever's coining off the top of my head. I don't try to sit down and be poetic. In the long run, when I look back at my songs, I can see the lyrics represent whatever mood I was in at the time. But when I'm working on the song, it's just soprt of words coming out randomly. And any kind of meaning to the lyrics is definitely subconscious at the time."

Then the third album came outA I)ay In The Stark Corner. changing to a slightly different, more atmospheric and spiralling down further This for those who love silentfilms: A Day In... is a great album to play while watching Nosferatu. This LP even impressed Peter Steele of Type 0 Negative.

"You should be familiar with Lycia. It's dark, ambient Goth Music. The last album is called A Day In The Stark Corner. 1 would our next album to sound something like this...."

But as the label Goth increased in the underground Lycia seemed to sink deeper into its black world. Mike never saw Lycia as Gothic but as "moody, reflective electronic Music". Mike tells of his personal views towards the Gothic community.

"One of the things that frustrate me is that I am not really from the whole 'goth' scene, as it has embraced Lycia. When 1 was first started playing music, my goal was to sound like Wire or PiL. When I was about 16, punk was on the verge of breaking, and Styx and Kansas were the top bands.... When I get together with some of my friends from the old days, we sit and discuss the 'goth' tag, and we remember exactly when this scene developed. In the early 80's, there was the London 'batcave' scene which was a very brief and almost comical stint in the history of mood-oriented music's development. Like everyone else, we found certain aspects of it interesting. But by the same token, other bands quickly came and washed all that out. This was during the time we were first doing music as Lycia, playing the music we had always created, and then... Boom' The gothic tag was applied to us. I didn't know what the word meant at the time as it related to music; sur I was a massive Bauhaus and Joy Division fan, as well as Killing Joke, but the so called gothic tag which everyone applies to this 80's music is a farce, a marketing ploy."

1993 rolled around and Lycia released it's first live LP called Lire. One song "The Last Thoughts Before Sleep(Sun Beats Hard)" is a beaut 0mm classic of electronic

emotchmg Lycia live and seeing Mike

play vu~ and lay his soul out on a overly

fogged stage can be a sight unimaginable to a timid heart. Mike has been given an odd look;

not due to his stage show but the fact he doesn't put on a facade of Gothic make up and theatrics.

"I find it hard at times to be at shows and have all gothic people there...! mean, I think that scene is exciting and everything, but be honest, I feel like I could be a lot of their fathers."

Mike put out his live album so he could concentrate on his side project Bleak with help from David Galas. This to Mike's moody emotional sound to an almost noize sound. Bleak's LP Vane was a true digging of humanity with emotional musica and pics of furnaces used during the Nazi reign. Breath taking. But this was to be the last side project Mike or Lycia would ever do.

Then over the dunes of time came a beautifully written 2CD set called The Burning Circle And Then L)ust. This time Mike kept David from Bleak and also introduced his live-in companion Tara Vanflower's vocals. With this trio, Lycia became a chorus of weaping seraphim. Pray" made a big hit in the underground scene and on the Projekt sampler CD #5 Beneath The key Flow. This song has become a dear song to me since I have dedicated ~to my daughter. The following song "Better Things To Come" was almost taken of the set before release but after a while Mike realized it fit with the overall feel of the 2CD set.

Times became rough on the Burning Circle.. tour. Going from electrical drum problems to David leaving at the end. This left Mike and Tara to work on the next LP. An LP which would even surprise the Lycia fans.

The fall/winter of 96 brought (Z'old and cold it was. This merged Bleak with Lycia into a total chaos of depression or as Tomas of Metal Maniacs stated "A classically structured mantra". This LP brings the mind closer to its end of its downward spiral of the darker side

of ones hemispheres. The great reviews of this LP can be found in almost any underground 'zine out there. The praises are endless; people truly feed of the pain and suffering of others.

As we watch this straggling wonderer fade

into the dust he carries his burdens with him

and his joys in his music.

"Music is really the main element in my lief,

my great escape...."

As of now, Lycia has just finished their cold tour as well as the Projekt Festival '97. Things were in the haze of the cold as '98 came to pass. Mike had discussed in one interview that he would like to do a score for a movie. Funny, since many people have said his music sounds like theme music. 

SHALLOW