Early Spring by Luke Loseth and Stefan Christoff

The process around this album emerged from a series of conversations with Luke over the last few years in Montreal around creative practice, including a snowy winter night organ move up a couple of flights of stairs in east Montreal. I had also shared some local community events with Luke, including a home concert where Luke did a beautiful hammered dulcimer set. I have been a fan of Luke’s evolving Holobody project for sometime now.

I documented a series of warm and textured acoustic guitar recordings that I wanted to share with another musician who could work them into a series of newly imagined works. I felt super lucky that Luke was into that, a true community arts collaboration. This album is the result, I am happy to share it.

Stefan Christoff
Montreal, September 2024

Tracklist

1.	Icebreaker	10:13

2.	Procession	11:15

3.	Advent	7:15

4.	Clearing	10:46

5.	Early Spring	4:01

Credits

released December 9, 2024

Luke Loseth produced this album and plays synth and electronics. Stefan plays acoustic guitar.

Guitar recorded by Stefan Christoff on a Zoom H4N
Synth and electronics by Luke Loseth
Photography by Luke Loseth
Mixing by Luke Loseth

PYR-047

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The release of "Early Spring" by Luke Loseth and Stefan Christoff on Pyramid Blood represents a significant contribution to contemporary experimental music's discourse on collaboration, spatial dynamics, and the intersection of analog and synthetic soundscapes. The album's dialectical structure pivots on the interplay between Christoff's acoustic guitar recordings and Loseth's synthesizer manipulations, reconstructing traditional notions of duet performance.

Panagiotis Chatzistefanou, Psychonaut Elite

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This cassette begins with beautiful acoustic guitar strums to set the mood. Through these deeper strums some higher pitched ones can take over and just make it feel like we're going on a rather magical journey. (...) Notes can come out now, as if with a message, sort of like morse code but something different. This can feel like plucking strings until you can't pluck any more and then this more melodic bass filled chord comes out to start a new song. A ringing behind it all now, but in a sci-fi way. Notes feel like they're cutting through now, moving at a growing pace. As much as it feels like we could be joyfully floating in space like a Flaming Lips song there are also these beeps and ringing going on with this, which could also be in a Flaming Lips song but just gives this one such distinction with the acoustics and electronics.

Raised by Cassettes

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Christoff’s guitar is pensive, a bit dark, and somewhat folk-like, reminding me of Town & Country from many years ago, or the early works I heard by Ben Vida. Loseth’s carefully placed drones and chords evoke at times a soaring organ or the electronic imitations of field recordings. The guitar playing employs chords, but there’s certainly a free aspect to the music as well, and Loseth applies a similar freedom, albeit restrained as it is. Sometimes, there’s even a melodic texture from the synthesiser, and this is where we hear the freedom in his playing: it occasionally goes out of control.

Vital Weekly

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holobody.bandcamp.com
spirodon.bandcamp.com

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