Easily our favorite Noisey Acoustics of all time was Sylvan Esso on a Brookyn roof with a bunch of brass and someone dinking out a beat on a wine bottle. Brilliant! Plus the North Carolina duo’s debut LP was in our top 10 records of 2014, so obviously when we found out one half of SE, Nicholas Sanborn, had a solo project we were intrigued. Christened Made of Oak, Sanbor teased the project last month with this ambient-sonics-meets-creepy-in-the-woods visuals and below is the premiere of the first proper track under that moniker (lifted from the imminent EP Penumbra).
“Pinebender” (wassup with the wood theme?) wields bassy Moog like a weapon, which is offset with glitchy cascade and a shuffly percussive groove. It’s pretty ominous, but it’s also the soundtrack to an apocalypse we could get down to.
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Sanborn had this to say about the tune: “‘Pinebender’ was the first song I wrote for Penumbra, so it seemed fitting that it be the first thing we shared. The visual, created by Endless Endless, features my favorite piece by sculptor Kristof Wickman which doubles as the cover art and felt tailor made for the themes of the record.”
Made of Oak Tour Dates
11/5 Los Angeles, CA – The Bootleg *
11/6 Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst Club Atrium *
11/7 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill *
11/9 Portland, OR – Doug Fir *
11/10 Seattle, WA – The Sunset *
11/13 Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right *
11/16 Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle *
11/17 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery *
11/18 Washington DC – DC9 *
11/19 Durham, NC – The Pinhook *
* = with Tuskha
Penumbra is out on 11.6 via Partisan Records.
It was Kim Taylor Bennett’s roof. She’s on Twitter.
