Join us at dublab for a rare indoor gathering that invokes ecological time.
We’re joined by two artists visiting from opposite coastlines. elijah jamal asani is in town from Portland, fresh off the release of his stunning new AKP record ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,, recorded while living at the Grand Canyon as an artist-in-residence. Ben Seretan joins us from Upstate New York, from where he’s already released two records this year & is coming through to share a Cicada Waves inspired performance.
Before, between, and after performances Living Earth steward & dublab dj Noah Klein will spin a brief selection of environmental music live on air and sit with elijah and Ben to discuss making music in relationship with nature, how their own listening has become reattuned, and more.
elijah jamal asani would like to extend an invitation to slow down. To linger a little longer. To follow the wind’s lulling whisper, and let your gaze discern where the land meets the clouded horizon.
Documenting time spent in the Grand Canyon as an artist in residence, asani collected sounds (“the melody that the bottom layer of the canyon walls and the river played for each other”) from the environment with reverence, to place nature at the forefront of his celestial musings.
The finished work for asani is "an audio journal comprised of the sounds & sentiments captured on that fortyfourth night inside of the canyon; An echo of the softness etched upon those muav stones; an aide-memoire on the long-lost creation story between the river, the desert floor, & all the elements in between that remain intertwined for as long as they decide, forming what we call the grand canyon.”
Blending intuition with intention in a delicately woven collage of guitar, field recordings, percussion, piano, and zither, ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,, is a vivid stroke of abstract romanticism patiently wandering through ethereal ambient compositions. It’s an engaging use of space devoid of linear time, fluid and flowing, with ripples of honeyed instrumentals and new age invocations. Keys buoyed by long tails of delay, awash in a sepia tinged nostalgia, everything passed through an otherworldly texture.
elijah jamal asani is an anti-discilplinary nigerian-american artist bred in chicago & based near the river wimahl. as a multi-instrumentalist ,, he navigates soft nuances through new colours & infinite ((sweet)) everythings.
In 2014 some shirtless guy appeared on the cover of an LP with the phrase “Ecstatic Joy” tattooed on his chest. So arrived Ben Seretan of New York City, monastic and multivalent, hollering over crash cymbals, building impossible, towering clouds of drones, and playing the guitar like his life depended on it, smiling in the throes all the while.
His catalog is full of delightfully hard lefts - there’s the twangy excesses of 2016’s Bowl of Plums, the 24-hour-long album of pure heavenly drone My Life’s Work from 2018, and then in 2020 Youth Pastoral, an album of songs about breaking up and breaking up with God caught wider attention, getting named one of the best of the year by Pitchfork. Naturally Cicada Waves, his following record released by NNA Tapes, is an outlandishly serene 53-minute collection of instrumental solo piano recordings.
Capable of both terrifying crescendos and alarming tenderness, Seretan flies as a rare bird does - spot him through the binoculars if you can.