Päiväkahvit by Sontag Shogun x Lau Nau

Out Now on Beacon Sound

“Tape murmur, acoustic guitar, distant piano, and soft electronics ripple… creating a surface that seems calm until small glitches begin to press against it." ~ Brad Rose (Foxy Digitalis)

We’re so happy to finally share with you our new collection of works and reworks crafted out of unused source material from our 2019 visit to Laura Naukkarinen’s home island of Kimitoön, Finland.

Päiväkahvit is out today on Beacon Sound, and we’d love you to hear it.

It’s somewhat of a travelogue depicting the natural tranquility of this place and our creatively gratifying time spent there, it was an opportunity to revisit material we loved but which couldn’t fit on the original record, 2022’s Valo Siroutuu, and it provoked us to try out a unique idea to involve other artists’ interpretations of this material interspersed and immeshed within our music and audio (as opposed to clustering guest tracks at the end of Side B).

The result is a fluid conversation between place-based field recordings, vérité moments with Lau and her son in nature and at their home, impromptu instrumentals left in their original form, and musical collages by us and our friends.

Jesse wrote a short essay about his experience producing this album, and what it means to mine our past lives for inspiration in the creative process.

It’s also pretty to look at! The LP is presented on crystal clear vinyl, with absolutely gorgeous design, illustration, and layout by Anna Bernhardt. The first 85 copies sold will contain a unique print Anna made in Berlin. Of the 13 total tracks, four are reworks of material in various styles by our Amulets, Fadi Tabbal (& Julia Sabra), Post-Dukes, and our own Jeremy Young.

If you purchase via Bandcamp, we are throwing in a downloadable exclusive live recording of “Valo Siroutuu,” performed with Lau Nau at the Aladdin Theater in Portland.

As always, your support is deeply appreciated. To listen and purchase Päiväkahvit in the most supportive way, please visit Bandcamp here. Of course you can listen and download on Spotify and Apple Music.

Here are some other options:

Europe - buy vinyl LP from Soundohm
UK - buy vinyl LP from Norman Records or Boomkat
North America - buy vinyl LP from Forced Exposure
Japan - buy vinyl LP from Tower Records

We’re working on a lot of new music right now. Lend us your email and we’ll let you know when it comes out, alongside any tour dates or other major updates. I promise we’ll use it sparingly.

New song "Lucidity Ebbs" out now

We’ve got a new song out on the second compilation album from the OPIA Label, started by Icelandic neoclassical musician Ólafur Arnalds.

This song was made in response to a creative challenge put out by OPIA: Make a song revolving around the note E flat. We did that by recording a handful of E flats being looped on different analog oscillators — and then wrote a song to those.

“Lucidity Ebbs” is out now on whatever platform you use for listening to music. You can also listen to the full compilation here, with some beautiful tracks from other members of the OPIA community.

2022 in Review (So Far)

This first year out of a double-decker pandemic slumber has been anything but quiet for our little trio of musk oxen. In fact it’s been one of the busiest years of Sontag Shogun’s lifetime; and there’s much more to come…

Let’s take a moment to revisit the highlights of a half-year gone and give you a little preview of what’s to come later this year and beyond. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported us, come to see us perform, and helped us grow — we couldn’t do any of this without y’all! 

Flutter & Scrape

In January, we emerged with a recorded work re-engaging with some of the room-based sonic practices that informed our 2017 record Patterns for Resonant Space. Only this time, we laid out objects and instruments around a room, with 10 microphones capturing everything linearly and spatially, and improvised some music and soundscapes within. Thanks to the incredible curatorial team at Flag Day Recordings for issuing Flutter & Scrape on CD. 

“Lament” (Live-Ish from Home)

Later in January, we got together virtually to reconstruct a live video version of one of our oldest pieces, “Lament” from our respective homes in New York, Los Angeles, and Montreal, using rakes, rocks, tape loops, voice, and oh yeah that wooden instrument with the white and black thingies, what’s that called again? 

A Remix for Haco

In March we were invited by our dear friend and collaborator, Haco, to contribute to a full album of remixes of her spectacular record, Nova Naturo, alongside artists like 

Valo Siroutuu with Lau Nau

In April we launched one of the most widely-acclaimed records we’ve ever done (and the most fun!), with our Finnish collaborator, the undeniable musical genius, Lau Nau. The album is called Valo Siroutuu (“The Light Scatters”), and it came out on vinyl LP (via Beacon Sound), on a limited edition CD (via the Japanese label Ricco Label), and in art book form. 

Foxy Digitalis called it “one of the year’s most enchanting collaborative records..”

We Played Inside Trees & Flowers in NYC

This was insane. 

On Air at The Lot Radio with Youngbloods

In April, Jesse reunited with our homies from our former label, Youngbloods, in a two-hour DJ set on Brooklyn’s The Lot Radio featuring tracks from us, our friends, and our influences.

We Nailed the Road

To launch Valo Siroutuu in proper, we three numbskulls met up with Lau Nau for a few dates on the US West Coast in May. And then we ventured off into the desert and into the redwoods to play some more shows as a trio. We had an absolute blast, wrote some new music, and peed in the forest a bunch.

Sontag Shogun x Lau Nau live at Aladdin Theater on May 15th, 2022.

Stay tuned, we’ll be sharing some live videos soon! 

And Then…Jeremy Released an Album & had his own Tour

As if two tours at once wasn’t enough, Jeremy went back out on the road three days after Sontag tour ended, traversing the mayonaise-and-dill-scented roads of The Baltic States, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, in support of his recently released album, August Tape Sketches out on Meakusma.

Looking Ahead // Late 2022 & Beyond

Expect a Thom Yorke Cover Soon…

Sontag is currently working on a forthcoming cover version of Thom Yorke’s “Dawn Chorus” — a staple of our live shows throughout 2019. Expect a single release in the near future!

Listen to our live version of this song from Casa Del Popolo in Montreal.

We’re Heading Back to Japan! 

Catch us in the land of the rising sashimi this coming October! Here’s a look at our tour dates, a more official announcement will follow soon enough:

OCT 7 - Kobe

at Guggenheim House, with Haco

OCT 9 - Nara

at sun + moon + star, with Haco

OCT 10 - Shiga

at Shuyukan

OCT 12 - Nagoya

at KD Japon (K.Dハポン-空き地-), with Tsutui Kyoko, Usui Yasuhiro, & Ikeda Yusuke

OCT 13 - Kanazawa

at Shirasagi Art 白鷺美術

OCT 14 - Tokyo

at HIGH Koenji, with Anoice

OCT 15 - Niigata

at Experimental Rooms, with Haco

OCT 16 - Tokyo

at Atelier Fluss, with Yuki Murata

2023 Touring

With invites from The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, PT.FWD in Bloomington, Indiana, The Trillium Salon Series in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and more to present new work, we’re looking to be back on the road domestically in 2023 starting in March. 


We’ll share those dates with you soon, we promise. 
Hope you’re having a great year — we know we are! Bye for now, 

Jeremy, Jesse, & Ian

FLUTTER & SCRAPE - OUT NOW ON FLAG DAY RECORDINGS

We are proud to announce our latest studio release, “Flutter & Scrape” is available on Flag Day Recordings. The album is available for purchase (CD or digital) on Bandcamp.

“Flutter & Scrape” is an improvised site-specific piece composed during the “It Billows Up” session. Using prepared piano, sine and square wave oscillators, tape, voice and an interaction with objects, we created a ‘documented walking piece’; a performance that captures bodies, both animate an inanimate, and how the space ultimately responds with echoes and resonance, which gives this piece its ultimate shape. Recommended to listen in a quiet space, trying to imagine the dimensions, the tactility, the materials and the delicate exploration of a room.

New Single with Lau Nau from forthcoming EP, "Floréal"

We've got a new EP coming out next month on Beacon Sound that might possibly include some of the most pretty music we've ever made... You be the judge: Pre-order Sontag Shogun's Floréal EP and get it on cassette or digital when it comes out on November 15, 2019. 

This four-song album is about slow change, forced change, and longing for what we may have left behind in the process of change. Floréal combines recordings made all over the spatial/temporal map and includes contributions from our incredible friends Laura Naukkarinen and Ora Cogan, as well as engineering by Seth Manchester, John Hull, and Scott Solter, mastering by Rafael Anton Irisarri, design direction by Andrew Neerman, and archival access (which we didn't use) by Bern'rd Hoffmann's estate. Published by Beacon Sound (BNSD042).

Pre-order Sontag Shogun's Floréal EP and get your digital copy via Bandcamp or your c26 cassette copy courtesy of Beacon Sound on November 15.

Thanks for reading,
‹‹ J J + I ››

The Reviews Are Coming In

We’ve got some great words regarding our new record and we’ve put some of the highlights below. Enjoy!

REVIEWS

“Embedding classical-tinged piano and wordless vocals within a thick mass of electronics and field recordings makes the group's sound instantly identifiable and goes a long way towards distinguishing a fully realized recording such as this one.” - Textura

“The open-ended nature of a sonic tapestry is fertile ground for contemplation.  On It Billows Up, humanity meets the rest of nature and is given a musical score: disparate forces forming a fragile harmony." - A Closer Listen

“Using nothing but sine and square wave oscillators, reel-to-reel tape loop collages of field recordings, and live electronically-treated vocal noise, Sontag Shogun continue to breathe an authentic, pure energy into their sound.” - Nest HQ

“Sontag Shogun remain a strange and indefinable group that stands out on an increasingly homogeneous cultural landscape.” - Indie Is Not A Genre

“To say that Sontag Shogun are the equivalent to a sound travelog is an understatement. They, on this album fuse electroacoustic sounds and techniques to field recordings which make you feel as if you are on a journey through various countries with them.” - Drifting, Almost Falling

“Sontag Shogun reveal bits and pieces of a modern fable with each vignette here.” - Tone Shift

music video for "It Billows Up" premiers on Fluid Radio

Our new album has a beautiful new video that’s being premiered RIGHT NOW on Fluid Radio. It’s Very mesmerizing and involves some of our favorite collaborators on and off-stage. You can watch it RIGHT HERE or read the review/presentation by Fluid Radio here:

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2019/05/sontag-shogun-it-billows-up

film by Joel Schlemowitz
dance by Kate Ladenheim & Bre Short

Directed by Jeremy Young and Joel Schlemowitz, and shot whilst trespassing on Iona Island in the Hudson River. 2019. Music taken from Sontag Shogun's forthcoming LP, It Billows Up, out on LP/DL via Youngbloods on May 17, 2019.

We also have a sweet LIVE VIDEO shot by the amazing amazing amazing Azumi O E from our performance at Elsewhere back in March in Brooklyn, NY. Watch ‘n Listen below: