AM & Shawn Lee collaborated on 2011’s Celestial Electric, released digitally and on vinyl on the most excellent ESL label. We’ve covered ESL artists before–most notably Chris Joss who is still cranking out amazing retro grooves like nobody else can. (Joss released a fantastic new album, “No Play, No Work” in October.)

The AM & Shawn Lee collaboration has a lot of  analog synth texture to it, which always sounds great on vinyl, but there’s also a heavy singer/songwriter vibe–Nilsson meets Gary Numan Uptown?

The Numan reference is probably too doomy for this album until you get to tracks like Dark Into Light, which is a bit heavy handed on the rhyming, but arguably one of the best cuts for lovers of heavy, low end synth.

Turntabling interviewed AM & Shawn Lee by e-mail just before they started their new tour (details at the end of the interview).

First-a bit of background. Tell us a bit about AM & Shawn Lee, how things got started and what’s going on now.

Shawn Lee: Well, according to legend, AM emailed me after hearing my music on the radio in LA. This is true! I emailed him back.  We stayed in touch with cyber exchanges. I played on one of his tracks. When he came to London we hung out at my studio and I went to his gig. We hit it off… I later came to LA to play some live shows. I invited AM to sit in with my band on a couple of tunes. He did! We hung out more. We listened to records. We bonded…I said “We should make a record together”! He said “yes”! We did!!

This may sound obvious given the state of the music biz at the moment, but how did you decided to start releasing things on vinyl as opposed to the easier, more cost effective route of digital-only sales?

Shawn Lee: Well we were releasing in the obvious digital formats anyway. We are both fans of vinyl and it was clear to us that this album would have to be on wax. It smells lovely!!!! Nothing sexier than 12 inches of round platter, baby!

Do you find that the vinyl format serves some of your music better? Thinking of the Gary Numan-esque synth tones on tracks like Dark Into Light where the analog format would definitely favor those textures…

Shawn Lee: You can’t beat the sound fidelity of new properly cut vinyl. It ain’t a record til it’s a record- you know what I mean?! Not to mention it’s a great visual package as well.

Technically speaking, what was your major challenge of putting out digital and vinyl formats?

AM: Well the most obvious thing to do is have it remastered for vinyl…which we did. This is very important. We also re-did the artwork layout wise. We did a gatefold vinyl so we had more space to work with. Andy Votel (Finders Keepers) was kind enough to do all the artwork which is amazing. George Horn mastered the album for vinyl.

What is it about turntable culture that keeps it alive after all these years, in your opinion–sound quality aside, what attracts you to vinyl as a format not only for releasing music but also collecting?

AM: I think the main reason is that it is so tangible. It’s big and requires you to really put attention into artwork and layout. The 60s and 70s were such a magical time for that because so much went into the photograhpy, artwork, layout and liner notes. There was a certain pride in it.

I think that is coming back because many of us look back on those types of records and want to give our record the same love and sense of pride and detail. Oh wait, you asked about sound! Ha ha. Well, vinyl just is. Nothing sounds like it. The highs have a certain crispiness about them and the lows are so warm and full. But I personally think the resurgence has more to do with aesthetics than sound.

Any plans to stick with vinyl for future releases? Or is this more an experiment for you? What’s your experience been with vinyl as a format for the new album, and how do you like how it’s doing so far?

Shawn Lee: Yes we plan on releasing future records on vinyl . The CD as a format is dying out but vinyl continues to live on. As far as physical formats go, Records are the real deal. Vinyl is final….

Give us some dirt on working closely with Thievery Corporation and how do you like the ESL family?

Shawn Lee: Thievery are like a rock and roll circus! Long hair, spliffs, Jack Daniels, yoga! It’s an interesting mix. I’ve known Rob Garza for many years now and he is one cool dude. Everybody in their band was super nice and it was a great experience all round.

AM: Touring with Thievery Corporation was pretty classically rock n’ roll and they were super cool. They watched our show every night. That says a lot. After our last show with them in Oakland they had an after party at a club down the street. We walked in and Rob Garza was upstairs in a private area surrounded by different folks.

He asked if I wanted a drink and I noticed he had  a Corona. I was like “sure, I’ll have a Corona.” He made a motion to someone and 10 min. later an entire tub of Corona showed up along with a couple bottles of tequila. I was like “oh yeah.”

AM & Shawn Lee are currently on the Dark Into Light Tour which ranges from New York, Chicago, Ohio and elsewhere in the US, all the way to Quebec. Get tour dates and info at AMSounds.com