The Twilight Garden mixes atmospheric synths and catchy melodies and fuses them with hypnotic drum beats, lush guitar work, and elegantly powerful vocals from sole band-member Todd Loomis. Todd passionately blends old school European synth-pop, cold wave and post-punk into a modern, atmospheric, accessible darkwave sound. Imagine Disintegration-era Cure with more emphasis on the electronics.
Todd's previous life was as a co-conspirator in Velvet Acid Christ, co-writing and performing on 2006's Lust for Blood, which ranked at the top of Germany's DAC for four weeks; the album's single release, "Wound," ranked on the DAC's singles chart for seven weeks and held the #1 position for four weeks.
"I started The Twilight Garden shortly after I finished working with Bryan Erickson of VAC on the album Lust for Blood", Todd explains. "After the completion of that album, I had so much else I wanted to do and say - many ideas and things I needed to put into tangible form - so I began the creation of what would become A World We Pretend. During the recording, there were moments of sadness, happiness, loneliness, and bliss - as with everything I experience or create. All moments are fleeting, and all things end. When put into a recording though, something transient can be fixed in time and given extended life. It reflects an instant which can never again exist and even more spectacularly, music allows that energy to live in someone else for a time. The title track is largely about the beauty of the moment and the anguish that comes along with fate: a mix of ecstasy and emptiness."
The album explores the darker side of truth as it mirrors life: the weight of inevitability, sadness, frustration, indifference, anger, loneliness, claustrophobia, etc. Todd ponders the desperation of time, sands falling through the hourglass, the end creeping forward, and our own powerlessness in the face of finality. There is a deep sense of sorrow in the music, a haunted awareness that time is running out. "I can never seem to rid myself of this feeling for more than a flitting moment," Todd says. "It's just a part of my life. Nothing can last forever, and all things will pass. I do my best to find beauty in the struggle of human existence - to find little pieces of joy or wonder. I believe some of that has been captured on this album."
The sweeping sound is warm and emotional yet at times filled with a deep chill. Instrumentation is predominately synth-based with guitars providing a swirling wall of texture: melodic at times, yet mainly harmonic and organic. Spellbinding drums are slightly repetitive and almost dance-like. Vocals range from a soft whisper to full verbal onslaught. Overall, A World We Pretend is a passionate outpouring of deep and enduring melancholy. Poetic and flowing, the album provides beautiful atmospheres of stark images and emotion.
OLD HISTORY
Todd has been the primary song writer, lyricist, vocalist, and guitarist in several different bands, including The Trucelent, Spiderhead, Removed, and The Farthest Shore. He also played guitar and wrote extensively on keyboard for the Denver, Colorado, USA based act Decanonized. Over the years, his bands have played hundreds of live shows, playing together with many acts such as The Church, Gene Loves Jezebel, Hate Department, Thorazine, Seraphim Shock, Rorschach Test, and many more. Todd also worked with Velvet Acid Christ from 2006 through the end of 2009, having worked on the following material: 1) remix on the reissue of "Calling of the Dead" - VAC LP, 2) "Lust for Blood" - VAC LP, 3) "wound single" from the VAC LP - (figurehead cover), 4) VAC remix for Emily Autumn's "dead is the new alive", 5) VAC remix for Brain Leisure's "resistance", 6) VAC remix for Darker Days Tomorrow's "zeitgeist", 7) VAC remix for Mortiis's "gibber", 8) Last "Toxic Coma" LP (VAC side project), 9) "The Art of Breaking Apart" - VAC LP, 10) "Caustic Disco" single from the VAC LP. During his time with Decanonized, Todd attended and graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver with a Bachelor of Music, emphasizing in music engineering. While at the university, he studied music history, theory, composition, and piano performance, in addition to his main focus, music engineering.