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Premiere: Indie Act Rituals of Mine Puts a Contemporary Spin on a 50s Classic

Rituals of Mine, Terra Lopez
Photography by Jeffrey LaTour

Brenda Lee’s “I’ll Always Be In Love With You” gets the electronic update it deserves.

Generational divides in music taste are unavoidable. The soundscape we live our lives to isn't the same as it was for our grandparents, never mind the advancements in sound technology. But that doesn't mean we can't learn from and commemorate the past. For Terra Lopez, the mind behind the queer trip hop project Rituals of Mine (formerly Sister Crayon), her love of emotional ballads from the 1950s has had a lasting effect on the kind of music she makes.

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OUT: What's special about this track, "I'll Always Be In Love With You," that made you want to give it this facelift and bring it into the present with a modern sound?

Terra Lopez: I grew up listening to 50s music in Sacramento - I was a weird little kid who listened to it over and over in the morning, after school, and before dinner. I was drawn to the emotion, passion, longing, yearning, and drama of these 1950s love songs. I knew I wanted to be a performer early on and used to pretend to be a male performer in the mirror and in front of my stuffed animals, and when it came time to do a cover I wanted to flip a traditional 50s ballad on its head and create our own electronic feel.

The original song seemed to lend itself pretty well to your reimagining. What kind of balance did you try to strike between old and new?

We wanted to keep the overall passion and vibe but tone it down a bit. Our producer, Wes Jones, and I wanted ours to be more sensual and downtempo. It's moodier but still maintains the message of the track.

What other decades of music have you dipped into for inspiration?

I'm really into the 90s - hip hop, Bjork, Massive Attack, and trip hop all heavily influenced Rituals of Mine.

Rituals of Mine plan to release an EP this fall, with a potential album on its way toward the end of the year or in early 2019. Listen to "I'll Always Be In Love With You" below, and find tour dates and more info here.

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