As prolific as ever, Ian William Craig will soon release a new album-length EP via FatCat’s 130701 label. Streaming above, we have the first listen of opening track ‘Arrive, Arrive’.
This new record, entitled Slow Vessels sees the composer paring things back ever further for an almost-unplugged release following on from the Vancouver-based musician’s 2016 album Centres.
The record sees William Craig stripping away any of the fog and manipulation that can be found on much of his past composition work, leaving his voice, an acoustic guitar and very few other effects behind, with the musician re-working six of Centres‘ tracks and casting them in a new, more upfront light.
The record was recorded amidst a week of in Gothenburg during a tour of Europe last August – the rented flat he was staying in happened to have a guitar and a piano. The tracks all featured within the record were each captured in one take with a small amount of noise provided by the modified cassette decks he’d brought with him for performing. Once recorded, each track was then mixed on a laptop between shows as he continued his tour across Europe.
"“I’m glad I did it while I was on tour because there’s a certain travelley heaviness to it, as well as a very short amount of time to do it in by design so I couldn’t think about the thing too much," he says. The record is out, in vinyl and digital formats, on May 5. You can pre-order it here. Ian William Craig plays London’s Oslo shortly after its release on May 8.
