The 22 minute long song “Abstractions” is the first release from Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s new label Touchtheplants and comes from the synth artist herself.
As mentioned when the label was announced last week, Smith plans to release a new iteration of the Abstractions series every year, with material that will fall outside of her album cycles.
It’s as if she’s given herself permission to be even more experimental. Almost immediately you can hear how the song differs from her usual output. Though there’s the familiar rolling current of her synth work, there’s also distorted sound effects of bubbles popping, and plenty of spins, swipes and sputters.
The visualization of the song above come via the song’s inspiration, filmmaker Harry Everett Smith. His early works found the artist painting directly onto film to create colorful, psychedelic visions. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s ode to his work is an especially loving tribute, giving sound to his silent films. She may have drawn on the work of Canadian animator Norman McLaren for her sonic palette, as he similarly painted directly onto film to create animations, but was also known to have etched animations onto film itself, creating not only a visual but sound at the same time. Maybe his most well-known work in this style is the 1940 film Dots. Everett Smith’s own “Early Abstractions” were produced between 1946 and 1957.
Future releases from the label will include works from Rob Moss Wilson, Chantal Anderson, Aubrey Trinnaman, Cool Maritime, Tyy Wells, and Gregory Kramer.
Vol 1: Abstractions is due out via Touchtheplants on 3/23.
