Loren Connors & David Grubbs
Evening Air
August 30, 2024
LP/Digital
Buy:Bandcamp
Evening Air is the result Loren Connors and David Grubbs’s first trip to the recording studio in the two decades since their first duo album, Arborvitae (Häpna). Arborvitae stood out for its spellbinding, utterly unhurried meshing of electric guitar (Connors) and piano (Grubbs).
With this long-awaited return, Connors and Grubbs take turns trading off on piano and guitar, with Grubbs at the keyboard for the two gently expansive pieces on the first side and Connors taking over the instrument for three gorgeous miniatures on the flip, including an album-closing and perfectly heart-stopping version of Connors’s and Suzanne Langille’s “Child.” The album’s wildcard is “It’s Snowing Onstage,” which finds the two locking horns with two electric guitars before Loren blew the minds of all present in the studio by unexpectedly switching to drums.
Loren Connors is one-of-a-kind, one of a handful of deservedly storied musical greats gracing us with their presence, and with Evening Air David Grubbs again demonstrates that he’s a stellar musician who also ranks among the most simpatico of collaborators.
A cover painting by Connors—another wordless signalling—sets the tone for this most beguiling of seances.
credits
Loren Connors: electric guitar (1,2,5), piano (3,4,6), drums (5)
David Grubbs: piano (1,2), electric guitar (3,4,5,6)
Recorded July 18, 2023 by René Pierre Allain at Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn. Mixed by DG and Mitch Rackin at Deep Dive, Brooklyn;
Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12K.
Cover: Loren Connors, A Coming to Shore No. 21 (2022), photo by Marissa Alper.
Back cover drawing by Fran Patnaude.
All music by Connors and Grubbs, published by Gastr Virgo Music (BMI), except “Child,” by Connors and Suzanne Langille.
