Carmen Villain releases new single, “Type,” from upcoming album due July 12th.

Photo by Signe Luksengard

“Lush downtempo that splits the difference between Fourth World ambience and smoky trip hop.” – Resident Advisor

Today, US-born, Norwegian-Mexican artist Carmen Villain shares “Type” the second single from her new, instrumental album, Both Lines Will Be Blue, out July 12th via Smalltown Supersound. The track is accompanied by a visual by Norwegian artist Solveig Lønseth.

Villain describes the inspiration behind “Type” : “I was very inspired by Ana Mendieta’s art (still am!), and was especially moved by her video performance art at the time. For example her Silueta series, or her powerful Blood Sign/Body Tracks. The films were spinning around my mind while making this song. After putting down a rough version of it, I had Johanna to come in and gave her free rein to improvise on top, before I finished arranging it.”

Listen to “Type” – visual by Solveig Lønseth https://youtu.be/2I8tQRKZmUc

Listen to “Observable Future” – visual by Ida Aurora Høiklev Ribu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG0auwx9w48&feature=youtu.be

Following 2017’s Infinite Avenue and 2013’s Sleeper, Both Lines Will Be Blue is Carmen’s first full instrumental album. A 7 track collection of cosmic excursions and dubby ambient-jams, the album is written, recorded, played, produced and mixed by Carmen in her Oslo studio. The soothing atmospherics are made up of tapestries of field recordings, synths, piano, drum-programming, zither and modular sounds. Throughout, Carmen’s music is colored by experimenting with different sounds and learning new techniques or by adding new instruments to the mix.

“I’ve been playing around with instrumentals for a long time, and it was something I wanted to do more with after I finished Infinite Avenue,” says Carmen. “Leaving out my voice and lyrics got me out of my own head a bit, which I needed. Working with sound is to me the ultimate meditation and is a more unconscious way of expressing whatever is going on inside.”

The flute, played by Johanna Scheie Orellana, is a central part of this new album. Carmen got her in to the studio to both record melodies that she had written, as well as making plenty of room for impro/freeform. Prins Thomas also appears on the record, playing percussion on “I Could Sit Here All Day.”

Both Lines Will Be Blue Tracklist: 1.Observable Future 2. Are You For Real 3. Type 4. I Trust You 5. I Could Sit Here All Day 6. Sometimes I Love You Forever 7. Impossible Colour

Pre-order Both Lines Will be Blue: http://smarturl.it/sts349-preorder

Keep your mind open.

[I’ll be blue if you don’t subscribe.]

Published by

Nik Havert

I've been a music fan since my parents gave me a record player for Christmas when I was still in grade school. The first record I remember owning was "Sesame Street Disco." I've been a professional writer since 2004, but writing long before that. My first published work was in a middle school literary magazine and was a story about a zoo in which the animals could talk.

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