LNDNGS delivers serene memories and ambient daydreams with debut self-titled LP - (11/18/20)
LNDNGS, LNDNGS
LNDNGS releases their debut self-titled LP available November 18th on Digital Formats via Trailing Twelve Records.
Trailing Twelve Records presents LNDNGS: the improvisational experimental project from New England based songwriter Ethan McBrien, multi-instrumentalist Rory Hurley, and studio musician Charlie Chronopoulos. Unified by an enthusiasm for creative wanderlust, LNDNGS constructs and surveys spaces and memories - both foreign and familiar, static, and fluid - as an ambient form of free-flowing sonic-nostalgia.
LNDNGS, as a trio, is connected at two points. McBrien and Hurley, known for their work as the psyche-folk duo Party of the Sun, have been recording, performing, and codifying a musical partnership since 2006 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Spanning two EPs (Lay Low, Goldenwood) and one full-length release with Trailing Twelve (Trekker), Party of the Sun’s catalog is primarily informed by McBrien’s interest in folk music and traditional Americana songwriting. Chronopoulos entered the fold through proximity and shared interest, working as a producer and sound engineer eighteen minutes east of McBrien and Hurley in Wilton, New Hampshire. The size of the state and local music scenes made a meeting between Party of the Sun and Chronopoulos inevitable and an intersection between their creative sensibilities highly productive.
Across three recording sessions between 2019 to 2020, Chronopolous, Hurley, and McBrien improvised over hours of open tracking. The songs, or passages, are what they dubbed as “LNDNGS”; pithy moments selected from much longer explorations. The name, as described by McBrien, comes from the idea of improvisational music taking the listener (as well as the performer) to different fleeting spaces, or, inspiring boundaries to be stripped down and allowing the music to play itself. As the record developed, the group began to sequence and title their recordings based on points of interest on Mt. Monadnock, which served to evoke a sense of physical place and assume form as a kaleidoscopic melting point for the trio’s ears and interest in extemporaneous songwriting. While acting as a literal mid-way between Peterborough and Wilton, its elevation casts the shadow in which LNDNGS sheds any conventional shapes, allowing the compositions an arena to dance freely as ambiguous allusions to paths once traveled.
In its totality, LNDNGS ebbs and flows - its aural narrative ripples to resemble warm opaque echoes of emotive folk and endless big sky panoramas. Its long-form pieces, "Monte Rosa," "Falcon Spring," "Cliff Walk," and "Mossy Falls," develop a sonic through-line by way of wide-stretching guitar tonalities, coloring the album with the blurred contours of a comforting Americana aesthetic. These lines are pushed, prodded, and clouded further into abstraction in "Lost Farm," "Spellman," "What Cheer," and "Amphitheater," all of which spool LNDGNS acoustic roots into cooled spaghettified electronic soundscapes reminiscent of Brian Eno, Grouper, and Tim Hecker. Just as the record finds comfort in its identity as a shapeshifter, "Pyramids," LNDGNS eleven-minute conclusion, fuses the album’s cornucopia of sounds into a cohesive, slow-moving percussive waltz. Emerging out of the shadow of Mt. Monadnock and into the sunlight, LNDNGS ends its phantasmic travelogue by finding solace in a profound summary of its parts.
It’s perhaps during a time of isolation that LNDNGS achieves its most tangible significance. Its intent begs an audience to join Chronopolous, Hurley, and McBrien on a self-guided journey through memories lost now found, but also chronicles and celebrates an achievement between friends when travel and time with loved ones is limited. As McBrien describes it, the process of making the album was “fun, peaceful, and therapeutic…” - regardless of which road LNDNGS guides you down, if you’re able to find joy and calm in your explorations it’s clear you’re going the right way.
“LNDNGS” is out November 18th via Trailing Twelve.
Take a listen to “Mossy Falls” below.
LNDNGS Tracklist:
Monte Rosa
Lost Farm
Cliff Walk
Spellman
Falcon Spring
What Cheer
Mossy Falls
Amphitheatre
Pyramids
LNDNGS is: Charlie Chronopoulos, Ethan McBrien, and Rory Hurley
Instruments used: Acoustic guitars Electric guitars Electric bass Banjo Udu Keyboards Percussion Accordion
Artwork: Nyiko Beguin, photo by Maurice Beguin
Press Contact: trailingtwelve@gmail.com
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