When I first heard Luke Stewart’s Works For Upright Bass and Amplifier Vol. 1 a couple years ago, it took me a while to really get my head around it. The work he creates in this context is not only cathartic but deeply introspective as well. Tonal movements find empty spaces to scythe the air at full flex, hacking down decayed boundaries that surround us. With Vol. 2, Stewart takes the ideas presented on the first installment and sharpens their edge.
Movement is essential, in the way these sounds are created, but also in how they travel and collide. Shifting from guttural, foundational drones to walls of scorched feedback, Stewart stitches it all together to build expansive inner worlds. The heaviness on the outside distills smaller spaces inside to focus in on ourselves, letting an inner quiet build toward radical change.
In this video, we get an inside look at Stewart’s process and hear a piece that treads similar water as Vol. 2, but is exclusive to this video.
Works For Upright Bass and Amplifier Vol. 2 is available for pre-order TODAY via Astral Spirits below (a Bandcamp vinyl campaign for a 2LP reissue of Vol. 1 will launch in the next week or so!). A double CD edition of both volumes is also available (and includes “Works For Pioneer Works” from Luke’s fantastic split with Patrick Shiroishi). The 2xCD is only available directly from Astral Spirits Bandcamp page OR from Luke Stewart himself on tour. A digital edition will be available later in 2022. Dig into all that below.
Further, Luke is in tour with Irreversible Entanglements in Europe starting tomorrow. Go see them!
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