Vancouver soundscaper Loscil recently broke the news about his new album Monument Builders. If you've been wanting a bigger glimpse of the record, though, you're in luck.
Down below, you can watch the newly shared video for album track "Drained Lake," which as you'll soon witness is a dark and intense piece of work. Helping explain a bit about where the video is coming from, Loscil mastermind Scott Morgan shared the following statement:
The dancer in the video, Vanessa Goodman, has been a frequent collaborator of mine here in Vancouver for the past couple years. We have a really great working relationship and the video started as me approaching her with the music and asking her to choreograph something that I could shoot. I originally wanted it to be purely in black and white and look really photographic. I was heavily influenced by a Norman McLaren ballet film from the '60s called Pas de Deux.
I shot the dance in a black box theater with multiple lenses including a cheap tilt-shift lens called the lens-baby which ended up adding this ghostly feel. Because Vanessa's takes were slightly different each time, the two layers combined nicely to appear like she was dancing with her own ghost. At the same time I was creating all this hand-inked and scratched 16mm film that I had scanned and converted to digital. I use a lot of this texture in my live visuals these days. I blended this with the dance video and I really liked how it looked. It created a super dense, murky, mysterious feel that worked well with the sentiment of the music.
Monument Builders arrives November 11 via Kranky. Loscil also has a handful of North American tour dates coming up, including some here in Canada.
Tour dates:
11/17 Chicago, IL - Constellation *
11/18 Detroit, MI - UFO Factory *^
11/19 Philadelphia, PA - The Gatherings Concert Series *
11/20 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge *
11/22 Montreal, QC - La Vitrola *
11/23 Kingston, ON - Tone Deaf Festival *
11/24 Toronto, ON - Array Space *
* with Benoît Pioulard
^ with Windy & Carl
Vancouver electro-acoustic veteran Loscil (a.k.a. Scott Morgan) took influence from another ambient master while making his next full-length release. Aesthetically inspired by the sounds of Philip Glass is his Monument Builders, which arrives November 11 via kranky.
While the new record follows Morgan's ambitious, endless Adrift app, it marks the first proper full-length from the musician since 2014's Sea Island. A press release explains that the collection was primarily pieced-together on sample-based instruments at his home in Vancouver, and includes the sounds of "boiling kettles and resonant moving air."
The album apparently took shape after watching an old VHS copy of Koyaanisqatsi, which led Morgan to appreciate the Glass-composed score.
"Something about the time-tarnished visuals and the pitch warble on Philip Glass's epic score added a new layer of intrigue for me," Morgan explained in a statement. "Glass has always been an influence but lo-fi Glass felt like a minor revelation, as if the decay was actually enhancing the impact of the film's message."
In addition to being inspired by Glass's music, Monument Builders was influenced by the "anti-humanist writings" of philosopher John Gray, the photography of Edward Burtynsky, and Morgan's own feelings on mortality following "the life-and-death battles of close friends and family."
You can stream the drone-and-horns-manned title cut from Monument Builders down below, where you'll also find the record's tracklisting.:
Monument Builders:
1. Drained Lake
2. Red Tide
3. Monument Builders
4. Straw Dogs
5. Deceiver
6. Anthropocene
7. Weeds
Down below, you can watch the newly shared video for album track "Drained Lake," which as you'll soon witness is a dark and intense piece of work. Helping explain a bit about where the video is coming from, Loscil mastermind Scott Morgan shared the following statement:
The dancer in the video, Vanessa Goodman, has been a frequent collaborator of mine here in Vancouver for the past couple years. We have a really great working relationship and the video started as me approaching her with the music and asking her to choreograph something that I could shoot. I originally wanted it to be purely in black and white and look really photographic. I was heavily influenced by a Norman McLaren ballet film from the '60s called Pas de Deux.
I shot the dance in a black box theater with multiple lenses including a cheap tilt-shift lens called the lens-baby which ended up adding this ghostly feel. Because Vanessa's takes were slightly different each time, the two layers combined nicely to appear like she was dancing with her own ghost. At the same time I was creating all this hand-inked and scratched 16mm film that I had scanned and converted to digital. I use a lot of this texture in my live visuals these days. I blended this with the dance video and I really liked how it looked. It created a super dense, murky, mysterious feel that worked well with the sentiment of the music.
Monument Builders arrives November 11 via Kranky. Loscil also has a handful of North American tour dates coming up, including some here in Canada.
Tour dates:
11/17 Chicago, IL - Constellation *
11/18 Detroit, MI - UFO Factory *^
11/19 Philadelphia, PA - The Gatherings Concert Series *
11/20 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge *
11/22 Montreal, QC - La Vitrola *
11/23 Kingston, ON - Tone Deaf Festival *
11/24 Toronto, ON - Array Space *
* with Benoît Pioulard
^ with Windy & Carl
Vancouver electro-acoustic veteran Loscil (a.k.a. Scott Morgan) took influence from another ambient master while making his next full-length release. Aesthetically inspired by the sounds of Philip Glass is his Monument Builders, which arrives November 11 via kranky.
While the new record follows Morgan's ambitious, endless Adrift app, it marks the first proper full-length from the musician since 2014's Sea Island. A press release explains that the collection was primarily pieced-together on sample-based instruments at his home in Vancouver, and includes the sounds of "boiling kettles and resonant moving air."
The album apparently took shape after watching an old VHS copy of Koyaanisqatsi, which led Morgan to appreciate the Glass-composed score.
"Something about the time-tarnished visuals and the pitch warble on Philip Glass's epic score added a new layer of intrigue for me," Morgan explained in a statement. "Glass has always been an influence but lo-fi Glass felt like a minor revelation, as if the decay was actually enhancing the impact of the film's message."
In addition to being inspired by Glass's music, Monument Builders was influenced by the "anti-humanist writings" of philosopher John Gray, the photography of Edward Burtynsky, and Morgan's own feelings on mortality following "the life-and-death battles of close friends and family."
You can stream the drone-and-horns-manned title cut from Monument Builders down below, where you'll also find the record's tracklisting.:
Monument Builders:
1. Drained Lake
2. Red Tide
3. Monument Builders
4. Straw Dogs
5. Deceiver
6. Anthropocene
7. Weeds
