Newtok

Newtok is a remote Alaska Native village situated on the Ningliq River, near the west coast of Alaska. Although a very remote and quiet place, Newtok has come face-to-face with climate change. Due to a combination of thawing permafrost, low levels of sea ice, and strong storms, its coastal lands Newtok are eroding dramatically. The village is currently in the process of relocating to a new site called Mertarvik, which will be safer from erosion due to climate change.

In 2016, Chicago visual artist Jennifer Cronin embarked on a trip to Newtok to document its changing environment. Upon returning, she spent the next several years developing a series of paintings and screenprints titled Seen and Unseen that captured this eroding landscape. Known for her large-scale realistic paintings, Cronin brought an eye for detail to her renderings of Newtok. Meticulously painted landscapes unravel as they disappear into a wispy haze of white paint.

In 2019, Cronin and musical artist Patrick Mitchell (a.k.a Dusty Patches) began discussing the project after Cronin asked him to perform at the gallery opening for the series. As a result, Mitchell created this album, Newtok – inspired by Cronin’s Seen and Unseen series and the story of Newtok, Alaska. Mitchell is a multi-instrumentalist songwriter and producer from Chicago who has led numerous past projects in the Chicago DIY community including De Triomphe, New Color, and Whiskey Wise. He dove headfirst into synths in 2017 and adopted the electronic alias Dusty Patches.

In approaching Newtok, Mitchell composed all of the constituent musical elements of the work and then recorded and live mixed the album during a single live performance on modular synthesiser. The album draws heavily on sprawling ambient synths, electric and acoustic post-punk guitar motifs, cryptic vocal sampling, vintage drum machines, and modular patches that often sound like birds or the sea.

Tracklist

1. Newtok
   
2. Melting Permafrost
   
3. Erosion
4. Rising Sea
5. Displacement
6. Coda