Squirrel Flower - I Was Born Swimming - VINYL LP

Transparent Sea Glass vinyl w/ download card in gatefold jacket. On the upcoming full-length album Tomorrow's Fire (Squirrel Flower's third & most ambitious record to date), Ella Williams went big in every way imaginable. Recorded at Drop of Sun Studios in North Carolina with Alex Farrar (Indigo de Souza, Waxahatchee), the album showcases Williams' magnetic songwriting without shying away from getting loud. She played many of the instruments herself, with additional contributions from drummer Matt McCaughan (Bon Iver), guitarists Seth Kauffman (Angel Olsen) + Jake Lenderman (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman), and bassist Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs). It's rich and grand - arguably the best thing Williams has ever done. Standouts such as InchAlley Light,Inch InchStick,Inch and Inch Full Time JobInch highlight Williams' undeniable force as a songwriter, with her incredible voice on full display.In addition to last year's Planet EP (which featured a beautiful rendition of Bjork's InchunravelInch), Squirrel Flower released the critically acclaimed album Planet (i) in 2021, which was praised in outlets such as The NY Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and others. Williams also recently released the InchYour LoveInch single, a reinterpretation of last year's Planet EP standout, InchYour Love Is A DisasterInch - an electrifying contrast to the slower, stripped-down original. Williams also recently collaborated with tag-mates Grapetooth on their new single, InchShining,Inch as well as multiple US tours performing alongside Soccer Mommy, Whitney, Iron & Wine, and others.

Squirrel Flower's heart-rending sophomore album Planet (i), following her 2020 debut I Was Born Swimming, is exactly that. A singular planet, a world entirely of artist Ella Williams' making. The title came first to her as a joke it's her made-up name for the new planet people will inevitably settle and destroy after leaving Earth, as well as the universe imagined within her music. InchPlanet (i) is my body and mind, Inch Williams says, Inchand it's the physical and emotional world of our planet. It's both.InchBuoyed by her steadfast vision and propelled by her burning comet of a voice, the record is a love letter to disaster in every form imaginable. Tornadoes, flooding, gaslighting assholes, cars on fire-these songs fully embrace a planet in ruin.As Williams rides from melancholy to jubilance to complete emotional devastation over the course of twelve songs, she carves out a future for herself and those she loves. Planet (i), out June 25, 2021 on Polyvinyl, is at once a refuge, an act of self-healing, and a musical reflection of Squirrel Flower's inner and outer worlds.

The second volume in this series reveals once again the amazing flair that Japanese composers have for the guitar. It also explores the ways in which the more traditional aspects of the country's music are brought into the sphere of the classical guitar with variety, subtlety and richness. From Toru Takemitsu's popular arrangement of Nakada's A Song of Early Spring through Akira Miyoshi's lyrical Cinq Poemes pour la guitare to Toshio Hosokawa's evocative Serenade the listener encourters unexpected colors and textures as well as evocations of the biwa and shamisen (types of lute) and the koto, a long zither.