Deemed, a "sound-experimental supergroup," by Stereogum, SQUANDERERS is the trio of guitarists Wendy Eisenberg and David Grubbs alongside multi-instrumentalist and legendary producer Kramer. The group was born from a spontaneous, exploratory afternoon studio session — three renowned players coming together with only a shared curiosity: how do time and space conspire to create sound?
From that first meeting came If a Body Meet a Body, their debut collaboration, released this past November on Shimmy-Disc. Pitchfork's Raphael Helfand called the project "a testament to the transcendence that can occur when a group of individual geniuses sit down together with no greater aim than melding their minds for a while."
Today, SQUANDERERS announce their sophomore project, SKANTAGIO, due for release August 22nd via Shimmy-Disc, along with lead single, “THEME FOR SKANTAGIO.” Of the album’s title, Grubbs explains:
"'Skantagio' is a word from Ancient Greek that means ‘sounding lead’ -- a rudimentary navigational instrument to determine depth in water -- and I learned of it through an interview that I did with Tony Conrad, where Tony had this to say:
"All of this is a part of dredging the past up into the present and, like a sperm whale, taking in a huge mouthful of stuff and spitting out the water to leave the food behind. That idea of time as something that you see ahead or behind and then may not see at all straight ahead is an interesting metaphor. You can think of it that way, or you can think of time being visible in all of those aspects in the present."
It appeals to me as a word for taking a measurement, understanding the depth one finds oneself in, and doing so with the simplest means possible.
This new album follows upon the more active, preliminary explorations of ‘If a Body Meet a Body’ with a deepening of trust and comfort with one another that one can practically hear unfolding in this sequence of improvisations -- still part of our first meeting. “First meeting, best meeting.”
Accompanied by a striking piece of Ambient-Cinema created by Kramer (as all videos for this LP will be), “THEME FOR SKANTAGIO” begins with a title card reading: "All of this is a part of dredging the past into the present." What follows is a collage of vintage footage: ordinary people walking, a child licking a spoon — then, suddenly, devastation. Fires tear through buildings. Smoke fills the sky.
Grubbs says the track finds the group “playing with fire,” and that metaphor becomes literal: a gentle instrumental amble gives way to total conflagration, the visuals matching the scale of the music’s emotional burn. The ultimate destruction, he notes, “leaves one speechless.”
SQUANDERERS are singular, boundary-defying, and unforgettable — leaving listeners with complex feelings about time, memory, and existence, all with their signature eerie, inventive twist.
"THEME FOR SKANTAGIO" is out July 10th via Shimmy-Disc.
EMAIL me at AlexLaurence @ AOL (dot) com "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, inf...
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