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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited to 500 copies. Recorded live to tape by Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown in Anacortes, WA. Mastered by Nicholas Wilbur. Pressed at Citizen Vinyl in Ashville.
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Limited edition. T-shirt on Gildan Hammer. 100% cotton.
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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited edition. T-shirt on Gildan Hammer. 100% cotton. Limited to 500 copies. Recorded live to tape by Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown in Anacortes, WA. Mastered by Nicholas Wilbur. Pressed at Citizen Vinyl in Ashville.
Includes unlimited streaming of A Matinee
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Screen printed on recycled chipboard LP jackets using watercolor plastisol ink.
Printed in an edition of 40, only 10 available for mail order exclusively in the WSR Bandcamp. Hand numbered. Comes with insert
Includes unlimited streaming of A Matinee
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Cold warmth.
Black glass.
Sleep in
warm press.
Warm patch.
Slip out.
Bliss out.
Love.
Almost blue, almost silver,
you can’t really name the color.
Smooth and glassy,
slip out of it
into cold patches of floor.
Shivering.
Miscommunication.
Mirroring.
Guessing.
Mirroring.
Remembering.
Intertwining.
Remember:
Lake Magnuson,
the wind in golden grass dances on
to Agate Beach
where the sand spins up towards the sun
over Elk Rock
and bodies gliding,
dreaming of days long gone:
at Salt Point
with Naomi
we found water.
about
A Matinee is the first collaborative full-length from Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund. All at once intimate and expansive, dense and diaphanous, it is perhaps best thought of in terms of pilgrimage.
In August, 2021 Bates and Asplund trekked to the Unknown, the famed destination church-turned-studio in Anacortes, WA co-owned by Phil Elverum (The Microphones / Mt. Eerie) and engineer Nich Wilbur. With Wilbur at the controls, Bates and Asplund executed A Matinee in one afternoon, using an array of instruments and devices ranging from a Casio SK-1 and a homemade Glockenspiel to computer programs and niche modular synthesizers like the Buchla Easel.
Bates and Asplund first met as students at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music (fka the San Francisco Tape Music Center) where they studied with experimental luminaries Pauline Oliveros, Laetitia Sonami, James Fei, Zeena Parkins, Meredith Monk, and Christopher Davidson. It is from this milieu that the duo proceeds, and fans of any of these artists will appreciate A Matinee, as will anyone previously hypnotized by Asplund’s phantasmagoric solo works for processed voice. But just as crucial to the sonic character of this record is the homespun spirit of the Pacific Northwest and its rich history of DIY projects. Bates’s granular computer processing of Asplund’s voice nods to the aesthetics of that Mills College lineage; but by layering in the unmistakably lo-fi Casio SK-1 sampling, Bates and Asplund nod to the home recording warmth of early Smog, Mirah or any number of K Records artists. And Bates himself, with his Drowse project, has often experimented with such high / low blending, to great effect.
There is a wide variety of sounds employed here, but it is in the service of a singular spirit, a unified sound brought to life by the hallowed cornices of that church-turned-studio. Asplund, in fact, conceives of A Matinee’s execution as capturing the air of the space upon projecting sounds into it. Far from incidental, the space of the studio itself was the very means for interpreting and intermingling these otherwise divergent fidelities.
All of this is present on A Matinee not only in layers, but as a kind of path as well. While the record’s first half is dedicated to the dense and rippling drone of “Brocken Spectre” –– something that will appeal to fans of Sarah Davachi, Kali Malone, or Éliane Radigue –– the second half, “Visitor,” gently picks its way through a variety of sounds to arrive at a plaintive and intimate duet for two slightly off-tuned acoustic guitars and clean, close vocals. The sounds themselves, it seems, have embarked on a kind of pilgrimage, the ultimate site of which is a place where the personal, even the vulnerable, is elevated.
credits
released May 19, 2023
Written, performed, and mixed by Lula Asplund and Kyle Bates.
Recorded live to tape by Nicholas Wilbur at the Unknown in Anacortes, WA, on August 7th, 2021.
Vocal overdubs on “Visitor” recorded at home in Chicago, IL, and Los Angeles, CA, by Lula Asplund and Kyle Bates, fall 2022. Mastered by Nicholas Wilbur.
Photography and scans by Lula Asplund.
Design and Layout by Lula Asplund and Kyle Bates.
Kelp speaks to me. Sad and experimental like Drowse. Musical freedom. I teared up during the chorus of "Falter" while watching them play last week: "you are changed." drowse
August creates slow, warm songscapes. He has released a wild amount of albums since starting the project last year and I'm in awe of his work ethic. Also, my friend Alex from Sprain plays on this. drowse
One of the most unsettling albums i have heard in a while. Chat Pile creates a grotesque blend of noise and groove that brings me back everytime. scarface6204
