Stadiums & Shrines

Naps & Sunset Diver: Sky & Sea

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Two projects oscillating, linked by cerulean palettes and Patient Sounds; grouped here today in solidarity with Bandcamp‘s collective pledge to American Civil Liberties Union.

Naps’ recent tape Checking Out Early is a deeply meditative and observant window-side respite. The flutter and field noise of “Work” finds its rightful match in the blinds of its visual above.

Sunset Diver’s new cassette SD is a bright textural bath, fragmented and frothed. In the treatment for “Thicket”, the trio of goggles lock into an oceanic groove that does not go unanswered, for in next sequence (not shown above) they find that “Sunken Treasure.”

Patient Sounds is offering a few special collection discounts for the day, in addition to donating their portion of sales.

(Editor’s note: try playing both videos at the same time).

E51: Sailing the trails to Borrego Springs

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S&S-NewtownRadio-E51

 

Episode 51 opens with a recent message from Shigeto (supporting Planned Parenthood), and closes with Liz Harris’ winter solstice hymn. Between those edges are two bedroom recordings from Austin-based songwriter Julia Lucille, the third single from the finest album of this New Year: Julie Byrne’s Not Even Happiness, a beautiful collaborative track by Marry Lattimore and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma via New York-based holistic tape label Soap Library (trailer below), and other January highlights thus far.

Shigeto – What Are We Made Of?
Mary Lattimore – Borrego Springs (ft. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma)
blu jeen – coolin w my baby
Sunset Diver – Sailing
Julia Lucille – Night / Darlin’ Babe
Wandering Lake – Eclogue
Cuddle Formation – trails to the peaks of mtns
Sudan Archives – Escape
the2vvo – Oktober
Banana – Banana C
Hauschka – Shy
Julie Byrne – I Live Now As A Singer
Kirill Mazhai – Home (Reprise) [ШАΛАШ]
Visit – Meadowolf
Grouper – Headache

 

S&S Radio broadcasts every other Tuesday night on Newtown Radio.

Stills

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Stills

 

A bittersweet, windswept dialogue between visual artist and composer.

Quietly released last month, collaborative project Stills pairs two mediums in a single narrative. Danny Clay‘s sound design (“open forms, archival media, found objects, toy instruments, analogue and digital errata”) interacts with Katrien De Blauwer‘s evocative collage work to great effect, disintegrating and regenerating, as if an elaborate snow globe music box filled with distant memories has been shaken. A delicate, disorienting, and essential late night listen.

This vinyl and book edition is the first in a newly launched imprint out of France, IIKKI (from the minds behind Eilean Rec.).

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City Lake [LPR Live]

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Bing & Ruth

 

Just under a year ago, Bing & Ruth got the old ensemble back together for one night in New York, to revisit City Lake—the 2010 LP experiencing a second life via reissue on RVNG Intl. Together with the label and (Le) Poisson Rouge, we were honored to help pull off this reunion.

On stage surrounding composer/pianist David Moore was a spread of performers on clarinet, cello, bass, lap steel, tape delay, percussion, and vocals. Most striking, perhaps, was the collective restraint. Each musician waited stoically, meditating ahead of their next movement, be it a nuanced pluck or hum. Every note had purpose. A sublime minimalism, with a mesmerizing, maximal effect, swelling to its climax on the album’s title track. This moment was recorded by Q2 Music, along with the calm that followed on “Broad Channel/A Little Line In A Round Face” and “Here’s What You’re Missin.” All prefaced with a thoughtful series of interviews.

Much thanks to Q2 for providing this path back.