Pocket Heirloom by Cellowax

Pocket Heirloom started as a way to find home again, in the small, worn things. We wanted to make music you could taste, like varnish on fingertips, or feel thrum in your ribs. It's an instrumental journey built from quiet moments—the kind found in a study hall's hush, or in the low hum of a cello against a radiator. We trace folk whispers through lo-fi loops, letting each wobble from our lathe-cut discs carry its own fingerprint, like memory caught on reclaimed wax. This album pulls from how we work: the mic'd practice takes where the talking stays in, the way a ribbon mic catches warmth along your jawline, or a window mic lets in air that raises gooseflesh. We sidechain not to some drum bus, but to the bow's pressure, so when a hand leans in, the whole mix bows with it, breathing. It’s about coaxing fragile sounds—sul ponticello whispers under 8-bit chimes, col legno knocks syncing with brushed snares—until a contrabass drone settles like a hand on the back of your neck. The idea was simple enough: turn disillusionment into something that blooms, slow and steady. We began with those thumb-warmed motifs, a gentle kick under minor-to-major sighs, like a window finally opening. As we moved, the lineage of sound became less a lecture, more a call-and-response, the mix learning to breathe with us. A gathered hum from reading rooms grows into a cello chorale, riding an MPC swing with a soft tape sag, where the grief held in the wood finds its own luminous voice. There’s a four-note ostinato that anchors it all, simple and dusty, built for replay, its wow-and-flutter landing right on your inhale. It’s a note we hope you’ll carry, tuck into your pocket. Ultimately, Pocket Heirloom isn’t spectacle. It’s practice. A quiet conversation about heritage as a living pulse, not a museum piece. The closing tracks open wide, the low-end a steady hand. It’s meant to settle in your nervous system, a rhythm that syncs with human breath, with footfalls on library carpet. A kind of gentle, unyielding ethic that says home is a practice you keep. We left some notes unfinished, some apologies under the breath, because that’s how honest work gets done. It’s in the raw spots, the wavers, that the feeling stays.

Our cello cries over raw hip-hop drums. Strings meet tape hiss. Instrumental stories that just feel right.