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Crossing the Steppe

by Preston Swirnoff

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Includes pdf files of essay liner notes, cover art, and insert.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $5 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Vinyl includes digital album. This record was pressed at 180 grams and includes a sealed scented insert with album credits on archival absorbent paper. Custom scent design by Brian Goeltzenleuchter, back cover essay by Preston Swirnoff, cover art by Richard Isabella. Record ships within one week from purchase.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Crossing the Steppe via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    edition of 100 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD or more 

     

1.
South of Nowhere 02:23
2.
Bell Spire 03:10
3.
Pasos 02:13
4.
Onyx K 02:25
5.
Totem Course 03:29
6.
Cemento 02:02
7.
Lai Loom 02:26
8.
Crossing the Steppe 08:56

about

Crossing the Steppe is San Diego-based composer/musician Preston Swirnoff’s second solo album of electroacoustic music, following his solo debut Maariv (Last Visible Dog, 2008). It is the first release on Richard Isabella’s newly launched Set Spaces label, recorded and produced by Isabella in his warehouse studio over several sessions in 2019-2020. The record is pressed on 180g vinyl, including a back cover essay on the Great Steppe by Swirnoff and a custom-scented insert made specially for the record, created by scent artist Brian Goeltzenleuchter.

Swirnoff uses only acoustic instruments with subtle tape manipulation and the natural reverb of a large warehouse space to create a haunting atmosphere inspired by the terrain of the Great Steppe, the vast ecoregion connecting Europe to Asia, a mysterious winding trail that blurs our traditional boundaries of East/West. Detuned guitars, unidentified percussion, bells, hurdy gurdy, reed organ, kalimba, autoharp, double flutes, natural materials, vocalizations with breath and whistling, passing trains, running footsteps, insistent knocking an old wooden door, coalesce in a suite of intimate songs and interludes that evoke a fragile dreamlike state. It is the sonority of one faced with a momentous journey, whether internal or out on the open road.

The music exists somewhere between musique concrete and rural folk traditions, transporting the listener to a floating purgatory, a disorienting unmappable locale. Recommended for fans of The Nurse With Wound List, Roberto Musci, Jean Claude Vannier, Alvin Curran, AMM, This Heat, Harry Partch, or music from the Greek tragedy films of Pasolini. 

credits

released February 4, 2021

composed and performed by Preston Swirnoff
hurdy gurdy & trumpet on title track by Sean Francis Conway
recorded and produced by Richard Isabella
mixed by Preston Swirnoff
mastered by Kelly Hibbert at Alachrome
cover design by Emily Hall
photography by Ed Mello
painting by Richard Isabella
scent design by Brian Goeltzenleuchter

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Preston Swirnoff San Diego, California

Preston Swirnoff is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer based in San Diego, California. Over the past 25 years he has worked in a wide range of genres and mediums to create an extensive discography, with a long history of performances and exhibitions worldwide. ... more

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