Barbara duBois – New Moon

Plïnkï Plønkï – Psalms for a Sunken Moon

From her Bandcamp page:

“The way the snowflakes fall on the reflective surface of a freezing lake at night.” – Headphone Commute

“Plïnkï Plønkï‘s lunar album is a tiny treasure, a cassette in an A5 box, like the moon eclipsed by the sun […] The light to come is not salvation, but the loss of subtlety; as soon as the sun rises, the listener yearns for it to set once more.” – A Closer Listen

In the swelling gambit of piano music, Éric Satie’s name and influence is often bounded around to saturation. It is odd then, that the kernel that inspired Plïnkï Plønkï’s latest venture was not a remark by Satie, but a remark about him – buried deep in a VHS at the back of their closet…

“when writing our previous albums, we’d really focused on writing music to remember. Music to preserve and lament collective nostalgias. To consider, for example, the Piano as something that observes, to sit to the side of something in lament…it changed how we wrote completely!”

What followed this dawning was a collection of three pieces. Pulling the piano out from centre stage and into the fore as a minimal bed to the stars. To distill as much as possible the tonic that is night. Once the pieces were written though, the subject felt incomplete. To offer only three views upon the Moon and her Daughter Tide felt like a disservice to those with which we trust our dreams. There’s a certain reverence, order, and awe when one writes for the Moon. Her moves so calculated and precise, her vectors so known – the night her stave.

“…before Psalms we were trying to capture moments. Throwing notes into the air to see where they land- with this though, we wanted to know where they’d land”

Having not scored ensemble works before, there was a long period at the drawing board re- teaching themselves the basics. Breaks at work turned into sessions landing crotchets on a bar, and evenings into the silent shuffle of minims. The first steps took a long time, and a lot of learning. When the dots were finally on the page, Plïnkï needed to find people to play them.

“…we were incredibly lucky in that after our second album we managed to get a small pot of money set aside. This meant for the first time, we could open up our palette to new instruments and players from around the globe- including some Plïnkï fans!”

Opening up to a symphony of players worldwide allowed Plïnkï a broader scope in their writing, allowing skilled players from across the globe to combine. Deft Oboists from America blend across the Atlantic with the sublime British Clarinetists. A medley of new string players weave in against the familiar sounds of Plïnkï’s Piano, Theremin, Saw and more. The songs began to chart a journey, with a sextet for a sextant. But as these players lifted the Music, said Music needed a vessel- to carry her from plane to astral plane…

“after exploring words so much in Pangur Din, we wanted some kind of verse to thread the way. Something with a set pulse and metre, and to hang all the wonderful words we were finding reading about the Moon! Though reading them aloud when you don’t exist…it is a challenge!”

This album sees Plïnkï write nine set verses- ‘Psalms for a Sunken Moon’. These marry a strict syllable and rhyming structure across the ventures and lexicon of the Lunar World. Read by friend of piano and coffee records Amanda Nordqvist, they tie together the drifting skies, pianos, field recordings and more – to create a unique journey across the night, drawing the listener into the stars.

Previous collaborator Ana Stefaniak once again lends her stunning illustrations to the release, going beyond just album artwork- with 20 unique animations creating one long journey across Spotify’s canvas feature. Tying directly into the narrative of the pieces, the illustrations are carefully researched studies in all things Lunar, and perfectly match the musings of verse throughout

The first of two albums, ‘Psalms for a Sunken Moon’ saw Plïnkï lift their home studios further, pulling in stems from around the globe. With two singles and an album releasing across three full moons of 2021 on piano and coffee records – with the album and poems coming out in deluxe A5 box sets with both booklet and tape, they remain an ever busy, ever non existent ensemble.
credits
released November 19, 2021