Embassy Nocturnes is the debut collaboration between Manchester-based Aging and Liverpool-based duo Land Trance.
Aging, led by seasoned multi-instrumentalist and Tombed Visions label owner David McLean, utilises the traditional jazz quintet to evoke the iconography of film noir and hard-boiled detective fiction, creating a proudly specific genre music for night-time consumption. Specialising in spacious, nocturnal improvisation and ballad heavy melodies present on releases such as 'Suitable for Night', 'Troubles? I got a bartender' and 2020's beautifully arranged LP 'Sentenced To Love', the band continue to conjure a deeply cinematic trip through the shadowy metropolises and rain soaked streets of classic 20th century crime stories.
Land Trance is the duo of Benjamin D. Duvall and Andrew PM Hunt, both active practitioners in the UK experimental music scene since the mid-2000s. The former as founder and creative director of prepared guitar ensemble Ex-Easter Island Head, the latter as leader of art pop group Outfit and more recently as a prolific composer and solo performer under his Dialect alias, with 2021's 'Under ~ Between' on RVNG Intl garnering significant critical acclaim for its idiosyncratic blending of electronic and acoustic textures. As Land Trance, the duo make an ecstatic, ecclesiastical form of psychedelic music rich in improvisation, instrumental colour and found sounds to create an elusive sense of place and memory. Their debut First Séance was voted 14th in The Quietus' best albums of 2020, with a vinyl reissue by Rocket recordings released in June 2021.
Embassy Nocturnes was recorded in the expansive basement of Liverpool's former Brazilian embassy. The nine evocatively titled pieces that make up the album act as their own distinct scenes, suggesting the labyrinthine atmosphere of the empty ballroom, the secret compartment and the damaged-beyond-repair reel of 8mm film marked “1968” discovered therein. Throughout, synthesisers glow and arc like approaching lights in the driveway; piano chords hang like cut-glass chandeliers. Echoes of quartet recitals for long gone dignitaries permeate the brass and bowed strings, electric guitar and tenor saxophone wreathed in red velvet and cigar smoke.
Elsewhere, pulsing machine rhythms and oscillating electronics evoke a passengers eye view of some neon expanse at cruising speed, with Joel C. Murray's agile and propulsive drum-work fluttering and hissing around the arrangements like steam valves opening and closing. Pealing, mournful trumpet bookends the album like a ghostly echo from the lower floors whilst other elements – dictaphone, bamboo marimba, plucked zither – weave through the pieces as enigmatic objects in an unknown narrative.
Embassy Nocturnes is a bold first meeting of musical voices, united through their commitment to creating a distinctive sense of place within their work. With group improvisation being sculpted into adventurous forms through extensive post-production and instrumental arrangement, the music blurs the edges of each artists’ distinctive musical vocabularies to create a vivid, mysterious collection of instrumentals rendered with cinematic richness.
1. Shattered Rooms 05:51
2. Under Chandeliers 04:30
3. Creeping Moonlight 04:31
4. Findings I 03:18
5. Lights In The Driveway 03:51
6. Findings II 03:49
7. Night Wounds 03:58
8. The Ornamented Lock 05:22
9. New Opiate 06:26
Andrew Hunt – Piano, Synthesisers, Electronics, Tenor Saxophone, Drum machine
Benjamin D. Duvall – Sampler, Shahi baaja, Bamboo Marimba, Zither, Dictaphone, Drum machine
David McLean – Tenor Saxophone, Guitar, Piano
Joel Murray – Drums & Percussion
With
Nick Hunt - Trumpet
Chris Hutchinson - Double Bass
Ben Fair – Piano, Synthesiser
Recorded at The Embassy by Andrew Hunt
Additional recording by David Berger
Mixed and Arranged by Andrew Hunt & Benjamin D. Duvall
Mastered by Dirk Serries
Artwork by Lewis McLean
