VERY LIMITED COPIES AVAILABLE
Ilam Press Records presents St Martin’s New World, a new double 12" record by Luke Wood and Luke Shaw, AKA The Opawa 45s. Two slabs of sonic six-string meandering with some drums thrown in here and there to keep ‘em honest. This release is a limited edition of 100 hand-numbered records, exquisitely packaged in heavyweight bespoke screen-printed covers.
The Ōtautahi-based duo have dragged their nostalgia for old guitars and analogue equipment through as many different genres as they have band names in recent years. This album, however, is a specific collection of dark, meditative, lo-fi guitar driven soundscapes recorded live in 2019 at different locations. Starting out as soundtrack collaborations for Shaw’s experimental film work during his MFA studies at the UC Ilam School of Fine Arts, Wood and Shaw quickly discovered a shared enthusiasm for long-form improvisation.
Each performance captured here begins as an exploration of a very particular guitar-effect-amplifier combination, and melodies are found in, or allowed to emerge from, the specific range of each set up—the ghost in the guitar—letting the ‘gear’ do the talking. The outcome being something akin to Sqürl meets Loren Connors meets Bardo Pond, St Martin’s New World moves between a lo-fi ambient minimalism of sorts, into crashing waves of reverberation and ecstatic feedback.
Tracklist
Side A:
1. Memory Toy 07:35
2. The Twist (for Julian Dashper) 08:41
Side B:
3. Wet Your Tail 17:12
Side C:
4. Opposite Lock 08:15
5. Nostalgia is a Drag 10:54
Side D:
6. Sick Air 12:53
7. The Diamond Harbour 05:49