Ancient Music, by Boxhead Ensemble

Ancient Music

by Boxhead Ensemble

supported by

editions vaché What can we say? Boxhead have been a longtime fave here- and we were surprised to learn of the new release! Truly gorgeous- Only a Bill Seaman or a few of the folks on Lost Tribe Sound can achieve this kind of beauty without being
saccharine...and B.E. features one of Stephen's favourite musicians on the planet- Tim Rutili, from the massive Califone....ss/tm/am Favorite track: The Other Shore.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Double CD in a cardboard wallet.

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

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Streaming + Download

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

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Full Digital Discography

Get all 4 Boxhead Ensemble releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Ancient Music, Here: Chicago Sessions, Electric Guitar, and The Unseen Hand: Music For Documentary Film. , and , .

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1.	The Bare Earth 04:30	buy track
2.	The Incandescent Wanderer 03:07 video	buy track
3.	The Other Shore 05:08	buy track
4.	Cuckoo Symposium 03:05	buy track
5.	An Illuminated Afterthought 05:03	buy track
6.	Mountain Music 03:29	buy track
7.	The Death Of An Ancient Star 05:52	buy track
8.	The Swallowing Sea 07:45	buy track
9.	A Quiet Place 05:40	buy track
10.	Elephant Architecture 03:39	buy track
11.	Between The River Banks 02:59	buy track
12.	Desert Fugue 04:28	buy track
13.	The Cadence Of Lunar Time 05:28	buy track
14.	Rodan Crater 03:49	buy track
15.	Three Dimensional Memories 04:48	buy track
16.	Moth 05:00	buy track
17.	Ancient Music 05:38	buy track
18.	Life Cycles 01:42	buy track
19.	A Farewell Under The Palo Verde Tree 06:45	buy track

about

Michael Krassner found himself in the desert. Though his long running instrumental collective Boxhead Ensemble began in Los Angeles and cut its teeth on the Chicago improv/art rock scene of the late ‘90s and 2000s, the forthcoming double album Ancient Music is rooted deeply in the Sonoran Desert, where Krassner lives the unassuming life of a restaurateur and has raised his family. In its arid washes of sound and dirt under foot sonic surrealism—reminiscent of Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Daniel Lanois’s Apollos: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, William Basinski disintegrating a Morricone score, or even the sand dune new age of Kevin Braheny Fortune, Michael Stearns, and Steve Roach’s Desert Solitaire—you hear the sound of growth at its own, natural pace. Slowly assembled over the course of more than 20 years, it’s a defining statement from the Boxhead collective, overseen by an artisan craftsmen who has carefully burnished its sounds down to the geologic essentials.

“The early days reflected the grittiness of that city,” Krassner says of Boxhead’s start, when characters like Jim O’Rourke, Jeff Parker, Edith Frost, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Doug McCombs (Brokeback, Tortoise), Scott Tuma (Sold American), Ken Vandermark, Dirty Three members Mick Turner and Jim White, and a pre-Wilco Glen Kotche (not to mention Mr. Wilco himself, Jeff Tweedy) appeared on Krassner’s early soundtrack recordings for director Braden King and Laura Moya. But when Krassner decamped to the heart of Phoenix, Arizona, a metropolitan sprawl in the heart of the desert, where his music began to take on a different tone, informed by the luminous quality of Southwestern light he found out west. “There’s something in the light out here,” he says.

Working with longtime collaborators like Tim Rutili of Califone, Wil Hendricks, Jakob Koller, Robin Vining, Keith Kelly on woodwinds, Joshua Hill, and Laraine Kaizer-Viazovtsev, Krassner oversaw sessions between 2001-2021 in Los Angeles and Finland, but primarily worked on the album in the 7-Track Shack, a small studio space behind his family’s home. Uniting chamber music stillness with rangy, naturalistic ambient country tones, Krassner and his collaborators reflect the vast unknowability of the desert, a place renowned for its beauty but also its deadliness.

credits

released July 21, 2023

Michael Krassner / guitar, synth, organ
Tim Rutili / keyboards
Ryan Jewell / percussion
Joshua Hill / cello, viola
Laraine Kaizer-Viazovtsev / viola, violin
Robin Vining / fender rhodes
Jacob Koller / prepared piano
Keith Kelly / woodwinds
Wil Hendricks / synthesizer

+ + + + + + + + + +

Recorded in Arizona, California and Finland
Edited and mixed by Michael Krassner
Mastered by Jon Neufeld
Photgraphy by Michael Krassner
Layout and design by Rob Jones

+ + + + + + + + + +

“the bare earth,” “desert fugue” and “cuckoo symposium” all appeared in the Braden King film “HERE”

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about

Boxhead Ensemble Phoenix, Arizona

Boxhead Ensemble is a musical collective founded by composer Michael Krassner. The project began in 1991 to record music for the independent film The Original Pantry Café. The group features an ever rotating line-up, which as included Edith Frost, David Grubbs, Glenn Kotche, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jim O'Rourke, Doug McCombs, Scott Tuma, Mick Turner, Ken Vandermark, Jim White & Tim Rutili. ... more

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