AS WE approach the end of this accursed year and begin to summate the best of it – and more than any year as a species, thank the good lord above for the human gift for creative abstraction and catharsis – it’s an absolute dead cert that Bing & Ruth’s wholly immersive drone study Species will be cited as one of the leftfield highlights.
It’s capturing, seductive, as deep as the oceans; ah shucks, read our review and go buy.
And David Moore, the man behind the dual nom-de-musique, has just released a five-track remixes companion to the album, Divergence: Species Remixes.
This quintet of tracks contains the results of collaboration with five like minds: The five-song EP features reworkings of Species tracks by like-minded artists: Ghostly International’s ambient explorer Khotin; Los Angeles harpist Nailah Hunter; punk-drone-folk weaver Maria Somerville; amniotic blissout practitioner James Krivchenia, and leftfield Bristol vocalist Lucy Gooch. You can hear Nailah Hunter’s remix of “Badwater Psalm”, below.
The gorgeous Species is, aurally speaking, an exploration of the possibilities of the Farfisa organ, aided by clarinet and double bass. Conceptually it was inspired by two recent loves of David’s: the desert and long-distance running. Briefly relocating from his New York base to Point Dume, between the Pacific Ocean and the desert, Moore was able to indulge in both passions.
Species is a study of suspended time and trance; not just a steady movement from A to B, but as something that flows, meanders and eddies, like water
Bing & Ruth’s Species is available now on digital download, CD and 2xLP – you can order yours from the 4AD webstore, here. Divergence: Species Remixes is available to stream and download here.
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