LIMINA Contemplates Life On ‘Coming Home’

Courtesy of LIMINA

LIMINA is a composer beyond his years. And Coming Home proves just that. The artist, né Tyler Durham, has worked with various marquee clients like Disney, Warner Bros, Netflix and more. But what he brings to his debut album is much more than flashy prior experience in the industry's most prestigious sound department—it's the beauty of life crystalized in music. 

"I am a storyteller," LIMINA said. "That's how my music is just crafted, and I love to arrange it in that sort of way. And being in the film space where you're told, okay, you have to fit into the box of the movie, which is a blast. I love doing that collaboration. I love working in that space. But there's this thing when I was in school, learning about just finding your home base, which is your true voice as an artist, and making sure, especially in film scoring, it's really important because you're writing in so many different styles, it's important to have the space that you just call your own."

"So I knew I wanted to write an album that was exploring that, but the actual inspiration came from when I was in London working on a project, just riding on the tube system there. It's just this silence that you have when you're on the train and you're hearing all the rumbles of the tracks and the screech of the tires and everything, and you see all these people who are just contemplating and sitting there," he added. "And it was through that where I was just wondering, "What are all these people going through? What is happening? What are people processing? And also doing so silently."

For Coming Home, Tyler disclosed that he traveled with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to record at the city's iconic studio, AIR Studios. He absorbed the sounds of the city's atmosphere to create a luscious debut album. 

LIMINA sat down to talk about his new album, his inspiration as a composer, and his future. This LIMINA, Coming Home.

In Search Of Magazine: So tell me about your journey in music. How did it all begin for you?

Tyler: Yeah, so I started music at a young age. Around eight was when I got into piano and was sort of a requirement in our family, which ultimately I'm grateful for. But no one in my family is a... I mean, there was a sort of contract we had that we got when we were eight years old, which was, all right, "If you want to do piano, you can commit now, but you have to commit for 10 years." Which as an 8-year-old, you don't even understand what 10 years is. So.

ISO: Why the piano?

Tyler: Actually, I don't know (laughs) But I mean, it ended up working out because piano is such a fundamental instrument, and especially as a writer, it's really, really helpful to know just the layout, especially working with synthesizers, keyboards, all that. So I actually really don't know why piano was picked, but I'm not upset about it. So I was doing piano, playing piano for a while, and I always got in trouble with my piano teacher because I'd get my lessons every week and "Practice this piece, practice this," and I would start practicing, turn on my clock to put in the time, and then I'd hit a chord progression and be like, ""Ooh, that's fun. And I'd just start improving. And then I'd go to my lesson every week and my piano teacher were like, "All right, what did you learn?" I was like, "Nothing." But I learned how to improv on Bach or something, you know.

From there, I picked up percussion and I was saying so. I went to school at Missouri State University for just composition in general and was doing a lot of films on the side. And then I went to Columbia College Chicago for my master's degree in film scoring, and then came out to LA. And so I started mean my real love for music came out of scoring for film and picture and media. And through that it's just expanded into, I mean, to me wanting to create this album, do something outside and went away from picture. That is a way for me to tell my own story.

ISO: Wow. And where did you grow up? Where were your stomping grounds from zero years old to maybe sixteen?

Tyler: Yeah, I mean, I was born in Iowa, but I grew up in Missouri. So, in the Midwest, some people call it the South, but yeah, it's the Midwest for me.

ISO: So what was the music that was playing in your Home when you were a little kid or maybe even in Missouri? What were some of the albums that maybe allowed for you to gravitate towards music as something of a beautiful art form?

Tyler: We actually had a pretty eclectic listening. I had an eclectic listening experience growing up. I mean, my dad came from the classic rock sort of era, and also Celtic music was a big thing for him, which I actually get some influence from Celtic music.

So yeah, listened to that. I mean, when I was younger, I was jamming out to Michael Jackson, Foreigner. Also, and then from my mom's side, she grew up in, it was a little bit more, we played a lot of church. I'm not religious, but we played up growing playing in the church, and so got some of that kind of hymnal vibes and everything. And then my own interest turned into, I went through a heavy metal phase, then out of that, I started getting into Sigur Rós, getting into a lot of post-rock, ambience, just electronic exploration. And that's ultimately where I really am today is more of that space.

ISO: Coming Home is such a beautiful work.

Tyler: Thank you.

ISO: It's so good. You just put it on, and then your life becomes a movie, and I'm like, wow. So, what was the inspiration for Coming Home?

Tyler: So the inception of Coming Home, as I said, I am a storyteller. That's how my music is just crafted, and I love to arrange it in that sort of way. And being in the film space where you're told, okay, you have to fit into the box of the movie, which is a blast. I love doing that collaboration. I love working in that space. But there's this thing when I was in school, learning about just finding your home base, which is your true voice as an artist, and making sure, especially in film scoring, it's really important because you're writing in so many different styles, it's important to have the space that you just call your own.

So I knew I wanted to write an album that was exploring that, but the actual inspiration came from when I was in London working on a project, just riding on the tube system there. It's just this silence that you have when you're on the train and you're hearing all the rumbles of the tracks and the screech of the tires and everything, and you just see all these people who are just contemplating and sitting there. And it was through that where I was just wondering, "What are all these people going through? What is happening? What are people processing? And also doing so silently."

And so I wanted to create this album that was an exploration of that idea of... This is where I created a story of my own, of what a person would be like if they were estranged from their family and trying to come home and make amends and all of this anxiety and fear and guilt that comes into making that decision to go back. But then also the kind of acceptance and the love that comes out of that, of knowing that you're returning back to a space that is welcoming. And also getting to that space within yourself. So that's how the album is, the arc of it is. We start in these more tense, they are a little bit anxious in the openings, in the opening half, and then it turns into this place of acceptance by the end, and that was the whole inception of the album.

ISO: So it's almost like a hero's journey, but in sonic form.

Tyler: Yeah, it is, actually. Yeah, very similar.

ISO: Wow. What was the main thing you were setting out to do with Coming Home? 

Tyler: Oh, man, so much. Because I think the one thing that comes with writing albums, like music away from the pictures, again, that's my day-to-day, is your inspiration is coming from the picture that you're writing to, and that's shaping the way that you're writing a track. When you get into writing on your own and writing in this void, I think that's a challenge in itself because I actually wrote this album twice. Yeah, a year before I had finished this album in its current form, I had an entire 12 tracks that I was working with and felt good about. And then I went onto a project, came back and listened to it, and I said, "No, this isn't what I want to say." And I got rid of everything except one track, which is Coming Home, on the album. And I started to build everything off of that.

And so honestly, I learned in some ways of my expression through the album of going through this fear and anxiety and then getting to this place of saying, wait, I'm proud, and I'm happy with what I'm creating and doing, and saying it in a way that I want to say it. In some way, it was almost about the creative process, which I'm just thinking about now. But yeah, so much of it, too, is just being able to do... Again, my storytelling or my way of writing is always a bit cinematic and it is telling stories. It's just the way that I get to do it on an album is so much better, where I get to control the pacing of everything and how I'm presenting it.

And adding story elements of my own of, for example, in Coming Home, that track, there's a lot of processed vocals, not a lot, but there's a decent amount of processed vocals and throughout the album, and Coming Home is the only time in the album where there's unprocessed vocals. It's just raw. And I wanted that to be the case because Coming Home is this point of acceptance, and being able to put the protagonist's voice just authentically as it's resonating with herself in its pure form just felt like this perfect arc to the album. So being able to control things like that and just really think about, all right, "I want to use this sound here to represent that or do this," I learned a lot about that, of being able to story tell away from, or just doing it sonically as you said.

Courtesy of LIMINA

ISO: What did that person or thing appear as in Tyler's mind when working on this album?

Tyler: I didn't conjure a specific face or a specific person. I knew that I did just because, excuse me, because the vocals are, in Coming Home, they're female vocals, I did have a female protagonist in mind when writing it. But in terms of, I think that was kind of the... As I said, when I was on the tube and just see all these faces, and you don't really get to know that much about them, and you kind of just see them. I kind of made it more generally about that feeling of anxiety and that feeling of fear and then turning that over, and I crafted a story through that, but I left it a little bit open both for myself as a creative and also just for the listener. Yeah.

ISO: I love that. So talk to me about these tracks. Which one out of, let me see out of 13 tracks we got here, because I know that there's a choir version of Coming Home as well. So, which of these tracks was the most difficult to compose?

Tyler: That's a great question. I think track 8, "Beginnings," was really a difficult one in terms of programming for me, just because there's a lot of intricacies, a lot of, there's just a lot going on in that track. And to just try to craft it in a way that you're cramming in all these ideas and sounds, and it's playful and a little bit chaotic, but making it all sit together and play together was a challenge. And that took a lot of crafting to figure that out.

I think one of the other ones was "Dissolved," which is my second single that was released, it is another one that just took a lot of time to figure out how I wanted the form to play. I did a lot of variations of form on that piece, and that was just really just experimenting with how the setup would be. There was a three-minute version, there was an eight-minute version. I think it's ultimately in between those two. So yeah, just playing with ideas like that. But those proved to be the most, I think I spent the most time on in terms of just tweaking and tuning.

ISO: Now, does the most difficult track often translate to the most rewarding? Do you feel like after this rigorous process is over, like, "Yes, I did it!" Or does that not often translate like that to you?

Tyler: I think in some ways it does. There's a sense of relief that comes with finishing a track like that that you've just been banging your head against the wall on. But I think sometimes the most rewarding ones are honestly where, at least for me, where the idea you start with, you just go, "Oh yeah, I'm onto something." And you finish it in a day or less. You just crank it out, and you just say, "Yeah, that's what it needs to be." And I think that is actually sometimes the most rewarding where you just, like, I don't know what creative energy I was tapping into at that moment, but I want more of that. So I think that's the rewarding part of, like I said, there's a difference between the rewarding part of just the relief of saying, "Oh, I overcame this hurdle," but I love when you sink into a pocket, and you say, "Yeah, this is good."

ISO: You mentioned that you recorded in Air Studios in London. Dude, what the heck?

Tyler: I know. I should not be doing that because it was a dream. 

Courtesy of LIMINA

ISO: But what was it like when your life changed walking through those doors?

Tyler: Honestly, for what you said as well, the amount of history that's in there, and then to say, "Oh wait, I'm about to record in the same space." We were there for a week, and it took me the whole week to just get to a point where, like, "Oh yeah, I just did. This is actual reality."

And everyone in the studio is just, I swear, they're some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and they will share all these stories about all the famous artists that have been there. They're like, "Oh yeah, we had..." just name someone. And they're like, "Yeah, they sat here on this bench, and we were talking," and it's just wild.

Then, to actually hear the space, we recorded in Lyndhurst Hall, which is their biggest hall there. And it's really, again, I've heard, as you've said as well, I've heard so many albums, I've heard so many scores recorded there. And to actually just be in the room and just give a little, "Woo," and just hear it reverberate, it's instant goosebumps, let alone to hear my music being performed by just stunning musicians as well. I mean, yeah, highlight of my life for now.

ISO: That had to be reaffirming for you as a composer and you as a musician, but somebody who's on their purpose.

Tyler: Yeah. Honestly, it was. It was just truly inspiring. And it's like right when you get back, you're just like, "I've got all these ideas, I've got to start writing again." Yeah, it really is just a magical place.

ISO: So a little bit about that. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here or of yourself, but where are we going next after Coming Home? Did you start writing some more stuff immediately?

Tyler: I did jot some ideas down and I did play around, and then I got right back into film work, and it's been very busy, which I'm grateful for. But yeah, I do have plans to, I've got a couple of ideas that I'm playing with for different album concepts, and at the moment, we're just kind of waiting to see which one, when I get some time to actually sit down and say, "All right, this is the direction I want to go." But I definitely have plans to continue writing in this space for sure.