“For years, I’ve imagined the work I do in music, photography, video/film, immersive audio and meditation all coming into one space,” says music-art guru Christopher Willits from his home in San Francisco. It’s an ambition that seems especially befitting of a worldly polymath like Willits. “Sound and light can transform and inspire our imaginations,” he continues. “It can be used as a tool to awaken our consciousness.” And that is exactly what he has set out to do with OPENING, the veteran Ghostly artist’s new immersive audio-visual project.
Across seven tracks of widescreen ambient music, 45 minutes of visuals shot over four years in multiple countries, seven photographs, and a multi-sensory, multiple channel live performance, Willits has created something which might better be thought of as an experience than a simple album. OPENING features Willits’ latest music since Ancient Future, his 2012 collaboration with Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, and his recent production and mastering work on Tycho’s Awake. The vibrant, enveloping sounds we’ve come to expect from him are on full display. The quiet majesty of “Vision” ushers us into the sacred world Willits creates, a living universe that billows and heaves alongside slow-grooving songs like “Clear” and “Connect,” or with the textural minutiae and harmonic subtleties in “Ground” and “Now”. Closing out the album, “Wide” and “Release” offer the listener a gentle comedown through 15 minutes of transcendent audio, with Willits’ delicate guitar manipulations breathing life into the aether of finely textured atmospheres and soft-glowing synths.
The other integral facet to the experience of OPENING is Willits’ visual work. After building a library of images from his travels around California, Hawaii, Japan, and Thailand, Willits is unveiling an abstract narrative film, with seven scenes that correspond with the seven songs from the album along with seven limited edition photo prints. The 45-minute film interfuses music and a first-person perspective of meditative scenes—inspiring nature sections reminiscent of the films Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi and Planet Earth—to create the space of OPENING.
Willits says, “There are no actors or dialogue in this film. The audience and their perception is the main character, and everyone’s imagination is going to create some meaning that’s relevant to their own experience. My intention is to create a space where people can open up and expand into, relax and recharge.” OPENING is unlike anything Willits has accomplished before, perhaps because the audio-visual project is about expanding one’s mind to invite something new. Or, as Willits puts it, “For me, OPENING is about transformation, the experience of changing oneself to be more of who you know you can be, and, ultimately, the joy that comes with that change.”
Will Wiesenfeld who is better known as Baths released a stunner today under his acoustic alias Geotic. I was completely floored when I got to Vibrant Blues and Greens, I don’t think I can choose a favorite, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
First in a series of full-length Geotic releases under the Eon Isle header, each release sourced entirely from a single instrument.
Morning Shore
Guitar — (Summer 2014)
Sunset Mountain
Voice — (Fall 2014)
Evening Sky
Piano — (Winter 2014-2015)
credits
released 14 July 2014
Will Wiesenfeld
Guitar recorded at Meg and Campbell Logan’s house in Malibu, California. Final editing done at home.
I try to catch every Nebraska track that comes out, some of the most visual disco that crosses over to indie rock and deep house easily. I find his approach always seems to come from a genuine knowledge of his sounds history, looking forward to more.
Beef Terminal is a Canadian guitarist that caught my ear via bandcamp, this song grabbed my ear because it was a bit looser than some of the Mark McGuire tracks and the reverb definitely has more space to roam around.
Not sure who the artist is on this but the new age whistling along with a jungle break is such a great combo.
Pronounced Hate-Rock, this duo is like a shoegaze version of Sade, in love with this LP.
Psychic 9-5 Club marks the beginning of a new chapter for HTRK. It’s an album that looks back on a time of sadness and struggle, and within that struggle they find hope and humour and love. It’s Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang’s first album recorded entirely as a duo—former band member Sean Stewart died halfway through the recording of their last LP, 2011’sWork (Work Work).
Though the record is instantly recognisable as HTRK—Standish’s vocal delivery remains central to the band’s sound, while the productions are typically lean and dubby—they’ve found ample room for exploration within this framework. Gone are the reverb-soaked guitar explorations of 2009’s Marry Me Tonight and the fuzzy growls that ran through Work (Work Work). They’ve been replaced with something tender, velvety and polished. This is HTRK, but the flesh has been stripped from their sound, throwing the focus on naked arrangements and minimalist sound design.
The album was recorded at Blazer Sound Studios in New Mexico with Excepter’s Nathan Corbin, who had previously directed the video clip for Work (Work Work) cut “Bendin.” Inviting a third party into their world was no easy decision, but in Corbin they found a kindred spirit. The LP was then refined and reworked in Australia at the turn of 2013, before the finishing touches were applied in New York during the summer.
Of all the themes that run through Psychic 9-5 Club, love is the most central. The word is laced throughout the album in lyrics and titles—love as a distraction, loving yourself, loving others. Standish’s lyrics explore the complexities of sexuality and the body’s reaction to personal loss, though there’s room for wry humour—a constant through much of the best experimental Australian music of the past few decades.
Standish explores her vocal range fully—her husky spoken-word drawl remains, but we also hear her laugh and sing. Equally, Yang’s exploratory production techniques—particularly his well-documented love of dub—are given room to shine. They dip headlong into some of the things that make humans tick—love, loss and desire—with the kind of integrity that has marked the band out from day one. Psychic 9-5 Club is truly an album for the body and for the soul.
It’s been over two years since I released a new full length LP and I couldn’t be more excited for today’s worldwide release of Awake once again on Ghostly International.
If you’ve seen Tycho live you’ll know that I tour with a band comprised of myself on keys / guitar, Zac Brown on bass / guitar and Rory O’Connor on drums. When I set out to record this new record my goal was the capture that live sound and take the songwriting in new directions. There is a more driven, visceral energy to the live show and a stylistic diversity that Zac and Rory bring which I believe serves the music well. So this album was very much a collaboration between the three of us, and in many ways is the first true Tycho record. By approaching this record as a band, for the first time I feel I’ve been able to directly translate the ideas and sounds that I had envisioned.
We are collectively thrilled to share this new material with you as Tycho. Thank you for your support whether you discovered us last week or have been a fan for over a decade. We couldn’t continue making music without you. Hope you enjoy Awake and our sincerest thanks for listening.
-Scott Hansen
Awake is out worldwide today! Listen to a preview of the entire album on Soundcloud and you can purchase the record direct below:
Awake Tour 2014 kicks off next Wednesday, March 19th at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA. We will be touring through the United States, Europe and Canada and tickets are on sale now. Come say hello in a town near you!
$ – w/ Trails and Ways
# – w/ Sylvan Esso
% – w/ Gardens & Villa
* – w/ Gems
WED, MAR 19 | Santa Cruz, CA | The Catalyst $ BUY TICKETS
THU, MAR 20 | San Francisco, CA | The Fillmore $ SOLD OUT
WED, MAR 26 | London, UK | Oval Space # SOLD OUT
THU, MAR 27 | Paris, FR | Trabendo # BUY TICKETS
FRI, MAR 28 | Zurich, CH | M4Music Festival BUY TICKETS
SAT, MAR 29 | Milan, IT | The Tunnel BUY TICKETS
SUN, MAR 30 | Berlin, DE | Bi Nuu BUY TICKETS
FRI, APR 04 | Denver, CO | Summit Music Hall BUY TICKETS
SAT, APR 05 | Fort Collins, CO | Aggie Theatre BUY TICKETS
MON, APR 07 | Omaha, NE | Waiting Room BUY TICKETS
TUE, APR 08 | Minneapolis, MN | First Avenue * BUY TICKETS
WED, APR 09 | Milwaukee, WI | Turner Hall Ballroom * BUY TICKETS
THU, APR 10 | Chicago, IL | Concord Music Hall * BUY TICKETS
FRI, APR 11 | Pontiac, MI | Crofoot Ballroom *BUY TICKETS
SAT, APR 12 | Toronto, ON | The Hoxton * SOLD OUT
MON, APR 14 | Montreal, QB | Corona Theatre * BUY TICKETS
TUE, APR 15 | Burlington, VT | Higher Ground % BUY TICKETS
THU, APR 17 | Cambridge, MA | The Sinclair % SOLD OUT
FRI, APR 18 | New York, NY | Webster Hall % SOLD OUT
SAT, APR 19 | Philadelphia, PA | Union Transfer % BUY TICKETS
SUN, APR 20 | Washington, DC | 9:30 Club % BUY TICKETS
TUE, APR 22 | Charlottesville, VA | Jefferson Theater % BUY TICKETS
WED, APR 23 | Carrboro, NC | Cat’s Cradle % BUY TICKETS
THU, APR 24 | Charlotte, NC | Visulite Theatre % BUY TICKETS
FRI, APR 25 | Orlando, FL | Beacham % BUY TICKETS
SUN, APR 27 | Kingston Downs, GA | Counterpoint Music Festival BUY TICKETS
MON, APR 28 | New Orleans, LA | Republic % BUY TICKETS
TUE, APR 29 | Houston, TX | Fitzgerald’s % BUY TICKETS
THU, MAY 01 | Austin, TX | The Parish % BUY TICKETS
MON, MAY 05 | Albuquerque, NM | Sister % BUY TICKETS
TUE, MAY 06 | Tucson, AZ | Club Congress % BUY TICKETS
THU, MAY 08 | Los Angeles, CA | Fonda Theater % BUY TICKETS
SAT, MAY 10 | Sacramento, CA | Harlow’s w/ Dusty Brown BUY TICKETS
SAT, JULY 5 | Wanderlust Festival | Snowmass, CO BUY TICKETS
SUN, AUG 3 | Wanderlust Festival | Whistler, BC BUY TICKETS
With Tycho’s Awake, out March 18th via Ghostly, the Sacramento-based audiovisual project helmed by Scott Hansen has reached a certain maturity, growing into a three-piece band and achieving, on the new record, an even more refined sense of clarity. Awake takes the evocative, pop-ambient synth work that made 2011′s Dive feel so oddly spiritual (and drew countless comparisons to Boards of Canada) and refocuses it into a cleaner, sharper post-rock context; it feels like an album that should be broadcast at night over the Grand Canyon. I spoke to Hansen about growing out of “the Instagram approach” to music producing, making headphone music work live and why he considers this “the first true Tycho record.”
The Fader: Where am I talking to you now?
Tycho: We’re in the studio, working on the live show. I’m working with the engineer who helped mix the record to translate the recorded stuff live. Last album, we struck the balance between having the live show sound more like the record, but over time, we decided we wanted a more ability to go off the beaten path, and we’re trying to skew the balance back to the performance end of things. It’s kind of headphone music at the end of the day, especially the older stuff, so we’re always trying to punch it up.
The Fader: You’ve called this “the first true Tycho record.” Why do you feel that way, even though you’ve been at it for a little while?
Tycho: I look at it from a career perspective, like what I was doing in my life when I made those other albums. My life revolved mostly around freelance graphic design work, and I wasn’t truly focused on music in the way that I am now. And back then, I hadn’t met musicians that I really resonated with in a songwriting context. Meeting Zac, meeting Rory and meeting Count, the engineer—forming relationships with them where we were comfortable enough to start creating together is what facilitated making this record the way I wanted. It was always my dream for Tycho to get to that point, it just took me 10 years to get there. This is what I wanted Tycho to be all along.
The Fader: So it’s a proper band now.
Tycho: Now I kind of look at at is: I’m in a band, and I play keyboards and guitar and bass, and I also produce that band. You put on two different hats. Working with Zac in particular, we came up with basic ideas and then spent time in different places for a couple weeks at a time working through them, developing songs. Then I went back and produced them out, and we spent a few weeks at the end flashing and burning and doing the hard decisions I wasn’t objective enough to make in the past. From songwriting to arrangement, we worked really closely. Rory, the drummer—I always hear these drum patterns and swells in the music, but I’ve never had the ability or energy to achieve that with electronic programming. He was able to just sit down, hear the music and go.
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We are proud to have Porcelain Raft join our short list of Guest Music Posts. Mauro’s “Permanent Signal” LP is out August 20th on Secretly Canadian. Pitchfork Advance is streaming his new album this week. Enjoy the selections, i’m really impressed by the Violeta Parra song, I think its a very essential listen from starting to finish.
1. Factrix “Phantom Pain”
I was in Seattle and randomly ended up in a record store. They were playing a strange sounding song, driven by a drum machine and the singer was almost whispering. I liked it right away.
I stayed in Seattle for less than a week that visit, in a very old hotel in Chinatown called something exotic that I don’t remember anymore. This is the perfect soundtrack for old hotels with exotic names and broken neon lights, constantly flickering.
2. Violeta Parra “El Gavilan, Gavilan”
I’m reading this book called The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky. I love his movies and wanted to know more about his life. In one of the chapter, he recalls meeting a famous songwriter and guitar player from Chile named Violeta Parra. She was also a painter, and I was so intrigued by their conversation that I went and checked out her music. I’m not into folk music usually but she is different. She improvises songs and plays long guitar interludes, all recorded with a portable device. It’s so beautiful and the sound is timeless.
3. Richard Skelton “Noon Hill Wood”
I don’t know much about this artist…I do know he’s from UK and he’s published a number of books of poetry and drawings in addition to his music. He has also been known to include artefacts, such as twigs and dried flowers, inside the packaging of his album releases. He uses strings and guitars mostly when recording his music. You should check his bandcamp page and website, which is full of poems and drawings he’s created. A stunning, minimalist world he’s building, away from any sort of spotlight.
4. Randy Newman “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”
I really got into this on a road trip I did a few months ago, heading to perform at a festival. We played Randy Newman in the van and the experience felt like we were the Rat Pack heading to Vegas for a gig.
It was a very magical moment, as if that music existed solely in that van for us in that moment. The song I picked, “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”, is one of my favorites. Another one I really like is “In Germany Before The War”, when he sings ‘I’m looking at the river but I’m thinking of the sea…” When I grow up, I want to be like Randy Newman.
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HNNY is an up and comer that has figured out the slow formula that is still entertaining for everyone in electronic music. Its not too lullaby-ish or annoyingly drawn out, every sequence has reason, perfect cool down track.
Recently heard this song on a Dukes Of Chutney mix for Beats In Space while driving with Beamer on the Big Basin winding roads, has stuck with ever since.
Jon Hopkins and Purity Ring collab for something thats nothing new but I can see any young festival goer really enjoy this one.
Pharoah’s rework a Tornado Wallace that has itching for more. The second half guitar needed to make more appearances, it was that good.
