Post Moves - Clarity Surrender
Cassette
Post Moves is the project of composer and interdisciplinary artist Sam Wenc, currently based in Kingston, NY. As a multi-instrumentalist, he utilizes guitar, pedal steel guitar, vibraphone, electronics, field recordings, and found objects to compose structured and formless work that is curious about the themes and parameters of “folk" music.
Post Moves new suite of songs strikes a wonderful balance of melodic intricacy and expansive openness. Cascades of Sam Wenc's classical guitar strumming flutter through various movements, like he's leading the listener down an overgrown path in peak summer, winding up in various hidden microclimates. Vibraphone, organelle, fuzzed out leads, mourning doves, kitchen gamelan and other unidentified strings glide in and out of frame. It gives me the same feeling as some of my favorite film music from movies by Wim Wenders or Werner Herzog. It's much more than that, not mere backdrop.....melodies carry you along, drifting through dimensions that the sounds themselves are generating. Sounds great on an open air cassette deck. I say go for it.
"I recorded Clarity Surrender over the course of a few days in a small house in Olivebridge, NY. I had gone up there with 3 instrumental guitar songs that I had been meaning to record before they vanished from my memory. I hadn't had anything else planned to record, but I brought up a few other sound making things: a marimacho (16 string guitar), organelle, some random percussion. I tracked the 3 songs pretty quickly and then began mapping out a framework for each song that would create a symmetry across the pieces. Each piece transitions at a certain point beyond the structured guitar work to something more elastic and playful. I enjoyed the juxtaposition that played out in how they ultimately worked together in sequence. Its the first album of guitar songs I've done since No Dignity in Haste (2019) and I think reflects a different approach than the material on that album; much more inspired by the likes of Frantz Casseus, Maria Luisa Anido, Egberto Gismonti. I'm glad to have this material come out now, following three releases that were more focused around the pedal steel guitar. It's important to me that I'm trying to evolve my practice with both instruments, as well as step away from them both and work with different sounds and textures."
“Upstate New York based musician Sam Wenc records under the name Post Moves. Using a variety of stringed instruments, electronic treatments, voice and Yod only knows what else, Wenc’s music (which is new to me, although he has a very interesting looking discography) combines elements of folk music with the avant garde. This trope is not uncommon, but Wenc’s guitar playing takes a complex approach to contemporary acoustic primitive/art techniques. And much of his work would sound right at home on a bill with Daniel Bachman, among others. But the additional elements that pop into the music – treated vocals, percussion and whatnot – have a definite experimental flavour.”
-Byron Coley, The Wire, June 2023
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Cassette
Post Moves is the project of composer and interdisciplinary artist Sam Wenc, currently based in Kingston, NY. As a multi-instrumentalist, he utilizes guitar, pedal steel guitar, vibraphone, electronics, field recordings, and found objects to compose structured and formless work that is curious about the themes and parameters of “folk" music.
Post Moves new suite of songs strikes a wonderful balance of melodic intricacy and expansive openness. Cascades of Sam Wenc's classical guitar strumming flutter through various movements, like he's leading the listener down an overgrown path in peak summer, winding up in various hidden microclimates. Vibraphone, organelle, fuzzed out leads, mourning doves, kitchen gamelan and other unidentified strings glide in and out of frame. It gives me the same feeling as some of my favorite film music from movies by Wim Wenders or Werner Herzog. It's much more than that, not mere backdrop.....melodies carry you along, drifting through dimensions that the sounds themselves are generating. Sounds great on an open air cassette deck. I say go for it.
"I recorded Clarity Surrender over the course of a few days in a small house in Olivebridge, NY. I had gone up there with 3 instrumental guitar songs that I had been meaning to record before they vanished from my memory. I hadn't had anything else planned to record, but I brought up a few other sound making things: a marimacho (16 string guitar), organelle, some random percussion. I tracked the 3 songs pretty quickly and then began mapping out a framework for each song that would create a symmetry across the pieces. Each piece transitions at a certain point beyond the structured guitar work to something more elastic and playful. I enjoyed the juxtaposition that played out in how they ultimately worked together in sequence. Its the first album of guitar songs I've done since No Dignity in Haste (2019) and I think reflects a different approach than the material on that album; much more inspired by the likes of Frantz Casseus, Maria Luisa Anido, Egberto Gismonti. I'm glad to have this material come out now, following three releases that were more focused around the pedal steel guitar. It's important to me that I'm trying to evolve my practice with both instruments, as well as step away from them both and work with different sounds and textures."
“Upstate New York based musician Sam Wenc records under the name Post Moves. Using a variety of stringed instruments, electronic treatments, voice and Yod only knows what else, Wenc’s music (which is new to me, although he has a very interesting looking discography) combines elements of folk music with the avant garde. This trope is not uncommon, but Wenc’s guitar playing takes a complex approach to contemporary acoustic primitive/art techniques. And much of his work would sound right at home on a bill with Daniel Bachman, among others. But the additional elements that pop into the music – treated vocals, percussion and whatnot – have a definite experimental flavour.”
-Byron Coley, The Wire, June 2023
