The twenty-fourth - and final - issue in FatCat’s long-running and much-loved Split Series arrives on the 25th Anniversary of the Brighton-based label.

‘Split Series #24’ features acclaimed Canadian singer / composer Ian William Craig alongside the brilliant but little-known Estonian Kago - two artists each using their voice as a central element of their craft, mediated through technology to conjure startlingly singular soundworlds.

Neither side here will sound quite like anything you’ve previously heard. Ian William Craig provides a 19-minute-long immersive tape piece, with Kago delivering a warped, acid-tinged slice of Eastern European freak-folk to round off a killer release that fits the free-wheeling aesthetic of the Split Series perfectly.

Last ever release in FatCat’s long-running and much-hyped Split Series, described by NME as “a virtual academy of the abstract... [where] the shock troops of post-everything music gather” and by The 405 as having “left an indelible mark on the face of modern electronica.”

Hand-drilled and hand-numbered sleeves with full printed inner sleeve in a one-off vinyl pressing.

For fans of Tim Hecker, William Basinski, Ben Frost, The Caretaker, Maarja Nuut, Mari Kalkun.

TRACK LISTING

Ian William Craig
Because It Speaks

Kago
Kröösnomi
Avovang
Suure Reede Lapsed
Leontiine Kirotosk
Tetermats 2
Käed Lahti On Ulga Kergem
Sõita
Uued Vigikad

In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together composer Daniel Lentz and vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the potential of its loam left behind. A major figure in American composition, Daniel Lentz has worked at the middle and margins of postminimalism for more than four decades. A pioneer of “live multitrack recording” with the Daniel Lentz Group, he frequently writes for ensembles of similar instruments, from choirs to string orchestras to glass harmonicas. Like his west coast colleagues Harold Budd and Ingram Marshall, Lentz composes music of slow changes, built on fundamental harmonies and rhythms that evoke vast spaces and deep, ancient stone.

Canadian artist Ian William Craig combines his classically trained voice with precarious technologies: homemade analog synths, altered reel-to-reel machines, and faulty tape decks. His solo albums, including the acclaimed Centres (2016) and, more recently, Red Sun Through Smoke (2020), document a haunted nostalgia. In contrast to Lentz’s (sometimes) radical expansiveness, Craig’s music is fragile and self-consciously created alone, using his customized machination to create warped nocturnes of melody and dissonance. The sessions for In a Word took place in the Santa Barbara home studio of engineer Dick Dunlap. For both musicians the experience was an exploration toward each other. Craig with his rickety tape decks, Lentz sat at a grand piano. Lentz was immediately enchanted by Craig’s voice and equipment: “With the first note he sang, I was hooked. The beauty of his voice and his unique analog looping setup, all compacted into a small suitcase, were both remarkable and always surprising in what they could do. The music emerged spontaneously from simple, even cautious beginnings.

For Craig, who rarely works with other musicians, the sessions encouraged him to shed selfconsciousness and attune himself to his cocreator. Previously, he had regarded his tape decks and synths as bandmates, providing the creative energy he could get from other people. Recording with Lentz pushed him to find a new, more collaborative perspective. “I tried my best to control what was going on at first, and failed spectacularly. Once I let this aspect go and began to listen to Daniel, to my surroundings, and to the engineers, something finally clicked.” In a Word documents a coming together of two distinct musical personalities, and also a transformation. Lentz’s toiling, echoing piano, recalling his work on 1984’s Point Conception or the 1992 collaboration Music for 3 Pianos with Budd and Ruben Garcia, are churned into lush earth by Craig’s faltering machines. Craig’s folk-like tenor is realigned with Lentz’s crisp, minimalist repetitions; the combination is warm yet deeply layered, like the Californian sunset that would acknowledge the two composers at the end of each session day. Together, Craig and Lentz unearth deep forms of sonic expression from a common ground and newly seeded camaraderie. Lentz’s unmistakable piano sound is clearly relished by Craig’s tape decks, which add ghostly counterpoints of distortion and disintegration to its acoustic resonances. To this hall of haunted mirrors, Craig’s voice adds a yearning, human quality that is sometimes caught up in the same machinery, and is sometimes allowed to spirit above it. 

An accompanying documentary of the collaboration directed by Eli Welbourne will be released in tandem. A portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Wolfstone Ranch, a spiritually-based, activist community dedicated to making the rural Midwest a more compassionate place for all the animals who live there.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tasteful Gloss
A2. Joyce
A3. Aphrodite
A4. Erebus
A5. Up Up Up Stay
B1. A Pair Of Pears
B2. Fragrance
B3. Stöltzle
B4. Poire

Vancouver-based singer/composer Ian William Craig returns with a brilliant and powerfully emotive new album. His first for a long while to be centred around the piano - and also one of his most pared back - the record was made through an intense period of personal loss and environmental catastrophe.

‘Red Sun Through Smoke’ was recorded over two cataclysmic weeks in August 2018 in Kelowna, whilst the city was encircled by the forest fires which, under a warming climate, now regularly rage through British Columbia in summertime. With smoke engulfing the landscape, it was recorded from start to finish in the living room of a small house owned by his grandfather, who was moved into palliative care and tragically died halfway through the recording, his lungs filled with fluid as a result of the smoke.

Forged in trauma and an intense, bewildering slew of mixed emotions, Ian William Craig has created an album of incredible beauty, sadness and depth. ‘Red Sun Through Smoke’ is a profoundly moving album, a standout record in a prolific body of work that shows no sign of faltering.

TRACK LISTING

Random
The Smokefallen
Weight
Comma
Condx QRN
Mountains Astray
Take
Last Of The Lantern Oil
Supper
Far And Then Farther
Open Like A Loss
Stories