Label: Better Company
Released 10/4/19
Brooklyn-based art pop project SAN FERMIN’s new album, The Cormorant I, ushers in a new era for the band who envision the eight-track collection as the first of two eventual full-length releases encompassing the full scope of the new project. The Cormorant I sets the tone for SAN FERMIN’s newest chapter, which largely takes place in the ordinary yet enchanted spaces of childhood, centering on the tension between growing up and longing for innocence. Paired with a storybook grandeur that entwines the real and the mythic, The Cormorant I invites listeners on a trip of willful delusion, described by bandleader Ellis Ludwig-Leone as, “creating fictions from your life as a way to deal with a more complicated reality.” After writing most of the music in Ísafjörður, Iceland, Ludwig-Leone returned to Brooklyn and sculpted the record’s rich sonic landscape with the help of his bandmates: vocalist Allen Tate, vocalist/violinist Claire Wellin, trumpet player John Brandon, saxophonist Stephen Chen, percussionist Michael Hanf, and guitarists Tyler McDiarmid and Aki Ishiguro, as well as a cast of new collaborators, including Attacca Quartet and harpist Lavinia Meijer. In that process, SAN FERMIN dreamed up a two-part album of kinetic and spellbinding movement, spinning a deliberately wayward narrative that follows its two main characters from their earliest years, with Tate portraying the male protagonist while the album’s female perspective is provided by a revolving cast of vocalists, including Wellin, Karlie Bruce (a new addition to the touring group), Sarah Pedinotti (of LIP TALK), and Samia Finnerty (of SAMIA).