JANAKA STUCKY: PROLIFIC WRITER AND PERFORMER TO RELEASE ASCEND ASCEND: JANAKA STUCKY LIVE IN SEATTLE WITH LORI GOLDSTON
2X LP ARRIVING VIA NEUROT RECORDINGS ON 12TH MAY
“Janaka Stucky is extraordinary, and his work riveting.” – Jimmy Page
Neurot Recordings presents Janaka Stucky‘s Ascend Ascend: Janaka Stucky Live In Seattle With Lori Goldston, arriving on the 12th May release with preorders available now.
Praised by Jimmy Page as “riveting,” Janaka Stucky’s book-length poem, Ascend Ascend, published by Jack White’s Third Man Books in 2019, gets a mesmerising treatment on this album by the same name, accompanied by experimental cellist Lori Goldston. Goldston (Nirvana, Cat Power, and Earth) provides otherworldly layers of distortion and natural reverb over Stucky’s distinct vocal performance.
Ascend Ascend: Janaka Stucky Live In Seattle With Lori Goldston was recorded at the All Pilgrims Church in Seattle while Stucky was on a seven-city tour produced by Atlas Obscura in 2019. The recording of the performance captures the warmth and immersion of the night itself, and what Stucky describes as an invite to the audience, asking them to join him in his altered state of consciousness as he recited his poetry. This performance was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Mell Dettmer (Earth, Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room and more)
In the live performances, Stucky recited the book in its entirety from the confines of a magic circle – drawn with sigils and arcane seals on the floor – ringed with beeswax candles, incense, and live marigolds planted in an outer rim of soil.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE OPENING MOVEMENT, “ASSIAH, THE MATERIAL WORLD”, IS NOW STREAMING VIA BANDCAMP
Photo credit: Adrianne Mathiowetz
“The recording is very warm and processed in a way that really brings out the best of the room,” says Steve von Till of Neurot Recordings, who is releasing the album. “I have seen a million sound waves, and upon first looking at the waves of Janaka’s voice and Lori’s cello I had to do a double take to make sure they weren’t the same wave – or that there wasn’t tons of bleed between the two – because they look eerily similar. They were so tuned in to each other!”
Ascend Ascend: Janaka Stucky Live In Seattle With Lori Goldston unfolds across two full LPs, each of the four acts consuming one side of each record. The artwork for the record is by David V. D’Andrea, who has created album covers and tour posters for Sleep, Earth, OM, and Godspeed! You Black Emperor and more. The record is being expertly pressed and packaged by Third Man Pressing, the record-manufacturing division of Third Man Records & Books, who published Ascend Ascend.
Ascend Ascend: Janaka Stucky Live In Seattle With Lori Goldston will be released by Neurot Recordings on 2xLP on 12th May. Physical preorders and digital presaves can be found here.
Ascend Ascend: Janaka Stucky Live In Seattle With Lori Goldston album cover
ASCEND ASCEND: JANAKA STUCKY LIVE IN SEATTLE WITH LORI GOLDSTON TRACK LISTING:
1 – ASSIAH, THE MATERIAL WORLD
2 – YETZIRAH, THE WORLD OF FORMATION
3 – BERI’AH, THE WORLD OF CREATION
4 – ATZILUTH, THE ARCHETYPAL WORLD
