• releasing Feb 22 2023 on cassette + digital via Strategy of Tension
• first single "Significance" + album pre-order available Feb 3 2023 via Bandcamp
• RIYL: Talk Talk, Mark Hollis, Scott Walker, Michael Mann's Manhunter OST, Robert Wyatt, Sade
Over two decades,
Nick Podgurski has built a world of his own under your nose. His undeniable presence pervades the work of former groups including
GRID, Extra Life, and
Yukon. Frequently employed for his powerful and fully idiosyncratic drumming, Podgurski’s list of past collaborators includes
Lydia Lunch, Ava Mendoza, World of Mirth, and many more
. Presently, he composes the slow and deliberate music of
MONAD, the ensemble of
Jessica Pavone,
Cory Bracken, and
Tristan Kasten-Krause; he is a prolific ambient artist in both solo contexts as well as in collaboration with
Zachary Paul and
Lina Tullgren.
But as bandleader of the art pop/rock group
Feast of the Epiphany, Podgurski is offering some of his most courageous, mystical, and probing work yet, in the form of
Significance, the project’s new full length album.
Eschewing the sound and collaborators of the project’s most recent release, the double LP
Practicing Loss (2019), this new ten track album is a soundtrack yearning for its film. Diverse, yet connected through mood,
Significance is an invitation to the sensate and emotional impressions of neo-noir and longing. The songs address the burden and reward of the weight of living; love; and the maintenance of the garden of death-and-life.
Significance is the first step towards work in and with film for Podgurski. It is approached as though reverse-engineering a film starting with the soundtrack, carefully cultivating the experience of the cinematic through sound alone. Coming out from the darkness of creation, meaning, narrative form, and character slowly reveal themselves unbounded. Each track is begun from various starting points, with entirely different ensembles, and with a process unique unto itself. The results are sequenced and finessed to maintain a very specific progression of moods just as soundtracks must in order to support the larger world of the films they support.
On
Significance, Podgurski is joined by
Jordan Balaber (Ninetails),
Tim Dahl (GRID, Lydia Lunch Retrovirus),
Tony Geballe (Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists, Trey Gunn Band),
Shelly Purdy (20/20),
Tony Gedrich (Extra Life, STATS),
Cameron Wisch (Dust Star, Porches, Cende),
Matt Kanelos (Hot Cup),
Kevin Hufnagel (Dysrhythmia, Gorguts). The album was mixed by
Kevin Bernsten (Pianos Become the Teeth, Triac, Multicult, Yautja) and mastered by
Jack Callahan (Cloud Nothings, S.E.M. Ensemble, Horse Lords, Ryley Walker).
Nick Podgurski: voice, OB-6, Yamaha DX, stratocaster, bass guitar, nashville guitar, Yamaha YC, Roland E-20, Piano, Yamaha CP, Roland TR06
Jordan Balaber (guitars 4, 5)
Shelly Purdy (vibraphone 2)
Kevin Hufnagel (guitar 10)
Tony Geballe (guitars 8)
Cameron Wisch (drums 3, 7, 9)
Tim Dahl (fretless bass 4)
Matt Kanelos (piano 7)
Tony Gedrich (upright bass 1)
Press inquiries:
newfirmamentinstitute@gmail.com
