Inventions is the new band formed by longtime friends,
tourmates, and labelmates Matthew Cooper of Eluvium, and
Mark T. Smith of Explosions In The Sky. There are plenty of
talking points here: The fact that Cooper hasn't been in a
''band'' of any sort since he was a teenager; no member of
Explosions In The Sky has released an album outside of the
context of EITS since their inception in the late 90s; and, of
course, this is a dream duo for anyone familiar with the
unparalleled emotional resonance of Cooper and Smith's
respective day jobs. However, thirty seconds into their
eponymous debut album, you realize that the esteemed
pedigree is irrelevant. Inventions exceeds all expectations by
discarding them from the get-go. They have created their own
tiny, wondrous corner of the world, one with ever-changing
sounds and colors.
Inventions began in earnest last year when Cooper invited
Smith to collaborate on a song for Eluvium's otherworldly
double-album, Nightmare Ending. The track, ''Envenom Mettle'',
was a standout on an album full of them, and just like that a
longstanding friendship blossomed into a full-fledged creative
partnership. The following six months the duo continued to
send audio files back and forth to each other from their
respective homes in Portland, Oregon and Austin, Texas. The
collaboration proved fruitful, inspiring, and truly enjoyable from
the outset, and in less than a year they had amassed more than
an album's worth of material. They traveled together to a
secluded beach house on the Oregon coast to complete the
album, an environment that proved not only highly productive
but also clearly influential on the album's windswept beauty and
warm vibrations. Across eight songs the duo explore the
delicate and disturbing - and virtually everything in-between -
with majestic abandon. It's the kind of beauty and brilliance that
only masters of their craft can accomplish when all egos and
expectations are cast aside in pursuit of the splendor of sound.
TRACK LISTING
1. Echo Tropism (2:54)
2. Flood Poems (7:29)
3. Entity (6:34)
4. Luminous Insects (4:48)
5. Peaceable Child (7:29)
6. Sun Locations / Sun Coda (6:01)
7. Recipient (5:11)
8. Psychic Automation (4:00)