It's like you identified the exact alley that I am crawling along and you sprinted up beside me. So much my jam. Great track Bekah!

Durango

Eigengrau

Guillaume Poncelet - Eigengrau

Buy Album:
Bandcamp: http://smarturl.it/wsmbandcamp
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/settlerspotify
Itunes: http://smarturl.it/settlersitunes

Follow WSM on Bandcamp: http://westernskiesmotel.bandcamp.com
Follow WSM on Facebook: http://smarturl.it/wsmfb
Follow WSM on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/wsmspotify
 
'Settlers' is the new album from Western Skies Motel, out April 22nd, 2016 in a limited edition of 170 gatefold 180gram vinyl, CD and digital formats.  'Settlers' was mastered for vinyl and digital by Taylor Deupree, with master lacquers cut by Roger Siebel at SAE.  The first 50 Vinyl & CD's ordered come with a bonus EP, 'Generations' mastered by Kirk Marrison of Kiln.

In the dry desert of Arizona that Lost Tribe Sound calls home, a letter is received from guitarist René Gonzàlez Schelbeck who’s eager to share a collection of intimately composed songs, titled 'Settlers'. Upon listening, we are immediately enthralled. There’s a timeworn, arid, and almost badlands quality to Schelbeck’s hypnotic, cyclical guitar style. It seems to perfectly capture the lonely, barren landscape of the American West. 

Yet, there are curious dynamics at play here as Schelbeck, who makes music under the alias Western Skies Motel, is from Denmark and far removed from any upbringing in the rough-hewn Americana style of folk guitar. Conceivably, his music has more in common with the lonesome, calculated tone of Berlin's modern classical scene or the rainy day folk of the UK. Those are intriguing parallels, since the collective mood of Western Skies Motel's music would adapt so well to either environment. 

Words hardly do justice to the rich, immersive experience of 'Settlers'; yet a few may help to set the stage. Schelbeck is a remarkably well rounded instrumentalist, who spent his early days losing his hearing in local punk rock bands. This youthful love for walls of sound and discordant guitar squalls survives in his modern sound palette. However, a more mature approach to these techniques brings moments of palpable tension, adding in uneasy waves of guitar feedback and droning harmonium. 

But ultimately, the truth of what Schelbeck hopes to convey through his music may rest rmly in his subconscious. In hindsight, 'Settlers' is about moving between worlds: not in the dimensional sense, but more as a constant change in form. Each influence and sound Schelbeck incorporates into his music feels native to the delicate ecosystem of these songs and each turn feels as organic and nuanced as that of the natural world. Just as a tree’s leaves wither and fall; a fire sparks and expands only to expend its last bit of fuel, extinguished and left for ash. So true are the parallels we find in our own existence, the complex ritual of growing old and returning to dirt. Decay is inevitable for all life, yet through this it becomes the rich soil for all things proceeding. Western Skies Motel's weighty instrumental mantras may root in this and other meanings yet to be culled. One thing is clear, this music contains signicant power, and, regardless of our conceived themes or geographic locations, it tells a story that is lasting and instantly familiar. 

'Settlers' sees a 180-gram heavy weight gatefold release very similar to the recent Mute Forest debut, 'Deforestation'. The acetate and test pressings were scrutinized for anomalies on world-class vinyl setups at Arizona’s esteemed audio dealer, Arizona Hi-Fi.

Western Skies Motel is building upon a busy year in 2015, having released two very different full-length albums 'Prism' (Preserved Sound) and 'Buried and Resurrected' (Twice Removed).

Settlers

Falling Leaves

Buy Album

Western Skies Motel - Falling Leaves (from Settlers)

Performed by...
Jonathan Russell MacArthur, tenor
Evan Bowen, percussion

Recorded and mastered by Paul Talbott at Revolution Studios, December 2017.

"scherzo"
if you want to offer some advice
on:
how to work harder
how to work smarter
better, faster, stronger
how to put your phone down and look UP
how to buy instead of rent because you're throwing your money away that way
how to invest in more education to achieve your goals (fucking debt!)
how to propose when you are still young but secure enough to provide financial stability
how to keep up with your peers / how to get ahead of your peers
how to get to that next milestone as fast as you can -
how to fix it up / how to fix it all 

I have some tips
On:
how to smile and nod
how to adapt

                    (how to feel a deep sadness for just how different our worlds are)

how to ignore advice
Text by Monica Pearce
June, 2017
Reprinted with permission of the poet.

How To... (tenor and percussion); text by Monica Pearce

This is my small contribution to celebrate Piano Day 2018. Hope you enjoy it!

What you make of it (Piano Day 2018)

BRIAN ENO - AN ENDING 800%

"Good Bye Forever" is one of my favourite tracks from one of my all-time favourite albums, "Lilies," released by Arovane on City Centre Offices in 2004. This short piece is an improvisational piano vignette on that beautiful theme, with special atmospheric treatments by Uwe Zahn himself. It marks the beginning of our musical conversation that we have begun in December of 2017 and continue to this day... Stay tuned for more!

Mike Lazarev plays Arovane's "Good Bye Forever"

Greg Haines - Two Rotations

Near

Willow

** *
This page is predominantly live recordings - please check out studio recordings here:
https://bekahsimms.bandcamp.com/
***

Composer Bekah Simms hails from St. John's, Newfoundland and is currently based in Glasgow after nine years living and working in Toronto. Her varied musical output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “tough, even gutsy...with a sure sense of original and vibrant colours” (Vancouver Sun), and lauded for its "sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity" (The Journal of Music.) Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy electroacoustic musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.

Bekah's music has been widely performed across North America and Europe. She has worked with some of the top interpreters of contemporary music internationally, including Crash Ensemble - with whom she is currently an artist-in-residence - Riot Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Bekah has also been the recipient of over 35 awards, competitive selections, nominations, and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. The resulting work from the Barlow Prize, "metamold," was nominated for the 2022 Gaudeamus Award. Works from her debut album “impurity chains” were nominated in both 2019 and 2020 for the JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her music has thrice been included in the Canadian Section's official submission to World Music Days (2016, 2019, & 2021), and in 2016 the CBC included her among their annual 30 hot classical musicians under 30.

Bekah is a Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, following previous academic positions at the University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario.  Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.

How To... (tenor and percussion); text by Monica Pearce

Bekah Simms

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Alex Eddington | composer

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