Today, we’d like to take you back to the mid-1990s, long before what would eventually be known as both the post-punk and shoegaze revival scenes. A band known as Low Sunday Ghost Machine were heavily active in the local Pittsburgh scene and had just released their stellar debut LP. On paper, the band combined mercurial darkwave with blistering shoegaze guitars, a sound that while seemingly indebted to the past, was equally ahead of the curve, explored by only a handful of modern bands at the time.
The band quickly caught the attention of essential ethereal/darkwave label Projekt Records, who would re-release their follow-up, the equally excellent Elesgiem, which was a shoe-in for our list of 100 essential dream pop releases. By this time, the band had shortened their name to Lowsunday (often stylized as lowsunday), while their sound became even more focused. The album is, in a word, a masterpiece, one of those records that simply stands the test of time and like a fine wine, gets better with age. As the post-punk and shoegaze revivals would take hold, Lowsunday would quietly disappear, leaving behind a legacy that set the stage for many great bands to come.
After nearly a quarter century of inactivity, Projekt re-released both of Lowsunday’s albums as remastered and expanded editions, making these excellent albums available for a new generation of discovery. Shortly after, Lowsunday reappeared as a duo and immediately dropped a stellar new EP. The White EP featured five gorgeous tracks which picked up right where the band left off and placed extremely high on my own personal best-of list for 2025. The EP was again released by Projekt Records and is currently available on pristine white vinyl and digital formats.The current lineup of the band features vocalist Shane Sahene and bassist Bobby Spell, the latter who joined the original band shortly after the release of the band’s 1996 debut. The duo performed all of the instruments on The White EP, which serves as both victory lap for the band and a taste of great things to come.
To kick off 2026, Lowsunday have just released a new video for “Soft Capture,” the EP’s crystalline centerpiece. The video, lovingly directed by Jer Herring, is a kaleidoscopic delight, juxtaposing moody performance clips with surreal shots of industrial landscapes and ominous clouds. Check out the track and video below:
We also had the chance to catch up with Sahene and Spell to talk about the new EP as well as Lowsunday’s future plans.
We’re beyond happy that you’re back! The White EP is the band’s first release in nearly 25 years. What was the catalyst for rekindling the band and recording these tracks?
Shane: Thank you so much! We are thrilled to talk with you and forever grateful to you. You can’t imagine how much it meant to us to make it onto your 2018 “Definitive Dreaminess- 100 Essential Dream Pop Releases” list – this was the kind of thing that gave us a spark when we needed one most. You actually deserve credit in part as one of the people who made us feel like maybe we had more to offer – because we could just have easily remained on the outside, but you raised awareness of the band that many would have otherwise missed.
Bobby: After several years of the two of us pursuing other music projects and work opportunities, while continuing to discuss music and our desire to regroup and write together, this opportunity from Sam along with the inclusion of new remixes and re-imaginings of older songs helped to encourage us to begin composing new music. Things just lined up the right way at the right time for the two of us…
The EP sounds like a perfect progression, as if you didn’t miss a beat after all these years – were there any different approaches to the way you wrote these tracks, or was it like getting back on a bicycle, so to speak?
Shane: Thank you! Surprisingly, It was very natural – it helped that our minds never really strayed too far from it. Probably the one thing that helped us the most is that we had been so busy with so many things for so long- at times, we had deprived ourselves of this thing we truly love. When we were younger, we had all the time in the world and we played and recorded constantly – things started to get very blurry for us when we became too immersed in it. It became very easy to lose perspective. We came back with a new clarity.
When we finally got to writing and recording together again- we were bursting with ideas and had a completely renewed love for it. It was the full circle and we found ourselves with the enthusiasm level and perspective we had when we got our first instruments as early teenagers or younger.
What are you listening to these days? What music (or other art forms) tends to influence or inspire you?
Shane: I can speak for both us in saying that we habitually watch stompbox videos more than anything. It’s so nerdy but so inspiring. Right now we are really chasing sounds – whether it be effects, synths, guitar tones, and so on.
We have been writing and recording pretty steadily for the last two years – and more especially in the last six months. When we are in this mode, I don’t like to listen to very much music beyond what we are working on – kind of like we are fasting. It holds a special place for the time it’s being made – it becomes like a mystery that we are trying to solve and anything else I hear can start to throw me off and blur my focus. I also worry that I’ll hear something that makes me lose confidence – it’s natural to have heightened sensitivities and feel vulnerable when in the middle of these things.
When away from recording and writing- I’ve gone back to House of Love, Sad Lovers and Giants, Telescopes, Jesus and Mary Chain, Siouxsie… However, I am always discovering something new, like this year, a fan had turned us on to Volplane, who I never knew about. Also we always follow old friends from Skywave who we played quite a lot with way back. They were individually brilliant and branched into A Place To Bury Strangers, Ceremony East Coast, and Static Daydream. Closedown was a very early favorite that I still go back to. Home Front was something newer that I really enjoyed. We love Ronny from Clan of Xymox and are always interested in what they’re doing. Astrobrite, The Soft Moon, Diiv, Hangwire…of course The Harrow…and many more.
Still, as much music as we love, once we get in the studio , the greatest inspiration is in the sounds and the back and forth with each other. We can start with the goal of a specific idea and in minutes end up on a totally different planet – that’s the adventure that we love.
Bobby: We’re both listening to A Place to Bury Strangers, Glixen, She’s Green, Niights, and Kid Tigerrr. I’m listening to a lot of Blonde Redhead, Swirlies, Galaxie 500, Feeble Little Horse, Nothing, Lull, the new AFI record, Korine, Hello Mary, Greaver, They are Gutting a Body of Water, and Holy Fawn.
Can you tell us a bit about the lyrics for this EP?
Shane: The lyrics on most of our songs have always been a challenge of not saying too much and not saying enough. I’ve always preferred abstract. My goal is often to write something that feels exactly what it’s intended to but is vague enough that anyone can make them their own. We often start with a title and once the music comes together the song almost start to reveal the words. I don’t really understand it. It’s kinds of like looking at clouds and starting to see shapes as your imagination engages.
I understand you’ll be releasing a follow-up EP this year – please tell us a bit about that!
Shane:Yes! The follow-up to the White EP, the Black EP is very close to being finished. We are mixing and finishing details as we are about to start mastering. We are sending this to the pressing plant in less than two weeks and are planning for a May release date. The songs are a very natural extension of the White EP – it’s intended as a two EP series. The Black EP is moodier and darker.
We are very happy with this EP. There have been several instances where we have finished the bulk of the tracking on a song and we leave the studio – as we sit and talk about it afterwards, we don’t really know what happened, we feel like we keep getting lucky and are ending up with songs that are more than us. We are afraid to even give it much thought because we don’t want it to stop.
Bobby: The new EP is intended to be a companion piece to the current EP. We feel that the new songs will mesh well with the White EP songs with some similarities in tone, subject and vibe, to form a larger consistent body of work. We’re really enjoying the increased immediacy of releasing EPs at the moment and we feel that modern listeners are consuming music at such a rapid rate it just seems to make more sense to us.
Are you planning on performing live in 2026?
Shane: We talk about it all of the time. Neither of us are used to releasing music and not supporting it live. If there was an opportunity that came up where we were invited to join a band we love for some dates – it’s very likely we would do it.
But yes, we still dream of switching back over to live performances when the time is right… §
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