Canadian experimental producer Scott Morgan aka loscil has revealed his next album: it’s called Clara and arrives on May 28 through kranky. He has also shared the spellbinding track “Vespera”.
For someone who has been releasing records so regularly and for so long, it’s always intriguing to find out how they continue to inspire themselves. For the genesis of Clara, loscil worked strictly from a three-minute recording of a 22-piece orchestra in Budapest, which was cut onto 7″ and then “scratched and abused to add texture and colour.” All the sounds on the record come from this source.
If you’re sceptical about the depth that could be drawn from such a project, then “Vespera” will undoubtedly sweep those away with its imperious beauty. The orchestra are certainly there, but stretched to ghostly-thin grey sheens that waft and transform as the song stretches on. loscil has cut a clicking pulse together out of the piece, which gives “Vespera” a vacuum-like momentum that drags you in, while blots of what sound like electronic tones drip around the atmosphere. The easy comparison is Basinski’s classic Disintegration Loops, not just because of the limitations of the recording, but for the dreamy breadth of what loscil has produced from it, which invites you to imagine a whole world in slow motion. Let’s hope the rest of Clara is as engulfing.
Watch the video for “Vespera” below, or find the song on streaming platforms.
loscil’s new album Clara arrives on May 28 via kranky (pre-order on Bandcamp). You can find him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
