Southeast Of Rain Releases Debut Album '42 Days'
The making of 42 Days began in 2019 at the internationally recognized Headlands Center for the Arts where Sophia and Lemon were Artists in Residence.
By: Sarah Jae Leiber Mar. 10, 2021
The experimental duo Southeast of Rain debuts their album 42 Days; a collection of electro-acoustic improvisations and compositions for pipa (a Chinese string instrument), voice, field recordings, and electronics. The album travels freely yet subtly between intimate acoustic improvisations, ambient atmosphere, and elaborate sonic explorations with epic arcs while paying homage to the affinity with nature found in traditional Chinese music. They paint an otherworldly soundscape with the shimmering textures of Sophia Shen's pipa, evocative cores of Lemon Guo's vocals, and immersive electronics whimsically processed out of field recordings. The duo composed, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered all 8 original tracks on the album together: a culmination of their collaboration over 9 years, embracing their multifaceted identities as two female composers, sound artists, and producers who work fearlessly between the cracks of multiple worlds and disciplines. 42 Days was released online on January 30, 2021 on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, and 150+ other digital streaming platforms.
The making of 42 Days began in 2019 at the internationally recognized Headlands Center for the Arts where Sophia and Lemon were Artists in Residence. The process began with field recordings: natural, human, and mechanical sounds encountered around the hilly peninsula of Marin Headlands which were then combined with Sophia's extraordinarily expressive pipa and Lemon's powerfully poetic voice. As sound engineers themselves, they recorded the improvisations and compositions at their temporary studio, a 2000-square-foot gymnasium once the site of service members' basketball games and bowling matches that now serves as a studio for resident artists at the former military base. The album embraces the unique acoustics of that space, which has a hollow and ghostly reverb lasting 4.2 seconds. The resulting effect transports the listeners into an otherworldly place where the boundary between humans, animals, nature, and mystic beings are porous, and one can freely transform into another.
Unable to meet in person during the 2020 pandemic, the duo worked remotely on the production of the album in their separate home studios. Originally from Fujian, a small province in southeast China, and currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York respectively, Sophia and Lemon have known each other for almost a decade, meeting as students at the University of Virginia. They began their first musical collaboration in the summer of 2013, when they traveled to Alaska to capture soundscapes at the EcoSono Institute. They recorded orcas and humpback whales underwater with hydrophones, witnessed an earth-shattering glacier calving event, and then used these field recordings to compose two new ecoacoustic works. These works were featured in the EcoSono Alaska Concert at Alaska Pacific University in 2013, the EcoSono Environmental Music And Sound Art Festival in 2017, and the distinguished Computer Music Journal of the MIT Press in 2018. Since then, the two have collaborated on many more field recording projects and concert tours in China, Japan, and the United States. The duo is committed to an interdisciplinary approach, frequently collaborating with dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists from different cultures and backgrounds, all guided by a deep sensitivity to sounds and their environments.
"...a genre-crossing project built on traditional Chinese music + California soundscapes + voices. Highly recommended." - Ted Gioia, American jazz critic and music Historian
"42 Days is a collaborative gem and a highlight among this year's new releases... inspires a sort of breathless introspection-a meditation on the perception of time and space in sound." - Award-winning multimedia hub I Care If You Listen (ICIYL)
"This stunning, beautiful project from Fujian duo Southeast of Rain 东南有雨 blends field recordings with rippling notes from the pipa." - Bandcamp 'New and Notable'
"It is so nice to hear contemporary work that does not fit neatly into a specific genre with pipa... and the layered, choral, emotive vocalizations... expansive yet do not oversaturate... Nimble and nuance are words that come to." - Kevin Corcoran, San Francisco-based sound artist and curator
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