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The Floating World & The Sorrowful World

Artist(s)

Sontag Shogun, Stijn Hüwels

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Released

20 Feb 2020

Country

Format

File, FLAC, MP3 Surround, Album, EP, Digital Only

Genre(s)

Electronic, Classical

Style

Ambient, Classical, Contemporary, Downtempo, Drone, Experimental, Neo-Classical, Sound Collage

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Track List

1 The Floating World 21:13

2 The Sorrowful World 22:11

Credits

Artwork By-Gregory Euclide
Guitar-Stijn Hüwels
Mastered By-Lawrence English
Organ, Piano-Ian Temple (2)
Tape, Loops-Jeremy Young (3)
Vocals, Field Recording-Jesse Perlstein

Notes

The Floating World and the Sorrowful World is an improvised collaboration between New York / Montreal electronic experimental trio Sontag Shogun and famed Belgian minimalist guitarist/tape manipulator, and curator of Slaapwel Records, Stijn Hüwels. This minimalist, yet engulfing album was captured in improvisation together at his house in Leuven, Belgium in 2018, and includes some additional sonic decor added in Montreal and Brooklyn. We took inspiration from the abstract, binary meanings of the Japanese word "Ukiyo"—which in different contexts conveys both "the sorrowful world" and "the floating world"—a homophone that highlights an important dichotomy in the human condition. The world exists simultaneously as a place of great emotional heft, and one of surreal hedonistic detachment. Through a constant play of gravity, our lives oscillate between the two, often leaving us feeling transient and unstable. Through swirling, drifting, evolving tonescapes we attempt to capture this beautiful, nebulous, intermediary place—an abstraction measured by the radius separating pleasure and pain. This record delves into the chasm formed by the complex emotional tapestry woven into the fabric of our beings and is a reflection on the limitations of a binary system. We endeavor to exist amid two worlds, satiated by the myriad states within.Recorded in collaboration in Leuven, Belgium in 2018. Additions and mixes done in Montreal and New York City.sontagshogun.comstijnhuwels.bandcamp.com thesisproject.us