Elori Saxl - Drifts and Surfaces (Clear Vinyl)

With Drifts and Surfaces, American experimental electronic composer Elori Saxl flourishes quietly in present-tense synthesis. The three-piece set originates from three different commissions, each influenced by her experience of living on Madeline Island, a small island in Lake Superior, and unified by shared themes that explore how technology has come to define our daily life: the blurring of physical and digital worlds, the compression and datafication of human experience, and the paradox of everyday stasis and constant change. Saxl continues to utilize chamber-music ensemble alongside digital experimentation, deeply tuning into textural emotion. Madeline Island marks the last land mass before the frigid, all-consuming waters of Lake Superior. "I was trying to capture the sense of disappearing horizon, lostness, awe, and dark power that feels really innate to Lake Superior," says Saxl." It is also constantly changing-drifts change directions, water becomes ice, ice breaks apart and becomes waves. There is constant movement from drifts to surfaces, surfaces to drifts." While her 2021 breakthrough LP, The Blue of Distance, worked with recordings from the lake itself, Saxl's source material here comes primarily from live percussion and other live instrumentation. In "Drifts I" and "Drifts II," commissioned by Chicago's Third Coast Percussion and Brooklyn's Tigue, percussion parts intertwine like shifting bodies of water with Saxl transforming drum rolls into expansive chords. "Surfaces," commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum for the 2022 Alex Katz retrospective, features strings, saxophone, and glass marimba. Saxl processes acoustic instruments through various forms of digital manipulation that cause distortion and deterioration, mirroring the pixelated and lossy experience of life in the digital age. Drifts and Surfaces offers a snapshot of an artist in constant evolution, absorbing life's impressions with mesmeric, visceral, and nearly tangible minimalist sound.