Photo: Max Basch
Elori Saxl has announced a mini-album titled Drifts and Surfaces, releasing on July 19th through Western Vinyl. The follow-up to her acclaimed 2021 debut, The Blue of Distance, features three-pieces which emerged from various commissions, including commissions from Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion (‘Drifts I’) and Brooklyn’s Tigue (‘Drifts II’), and delves into themes of transient beauty and mundane existence, reflecting Saxl’s experiences on Madeline Island in Lake Superior. She comments:
“I was trying to capture the sense of disappearing horizon, lostness, awe, and dark power that feels really innate to Lake Superior. 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.”
A profound exploration of the ephemeral and the everyday, the upcoming Drifts and Surfaces blends live percussion and collaborative instrumentation, processed through digital manipulation to mirror the fragmented experience of modern life.
The American experimental electronic composer has shared the third and final piece, ‘Surfaces’, a gorgeous track imbued with an ethereal and meditative ambiance. This piece was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum linked to an Alex Katz retrospective, and captures the subtle shifts in perception and the sense of collective identity among artists. “The ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change,” explains Saxl. “I wanted to have these really minor changes feel dramatic, to mirror the imagined movement in his paintings.” She continues:
“Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired me to think about how there is no individual ‘me’ as an artist without both the artists who came before me and the community of artists I’ve grown alongside. The delineation between us blurs, and I feel as though I am carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around me.”
Saxl has made a video to accompany ‘Surfaces’ and you can watch it below.
