Written by: Dave Cantrell

As in the imagined movie to which any work of this kind could conceivably be the imagined soundtrack, each piece that makes up the overall whole must, in and of themselves, be as aurally compelling as, in both plot and individual scenes, its counterpart must visually be. It’s a relational dynamic the artists herein understand down to their marrow but, then again, of course they do.

Eschewing introductions, we’ll simply allude to the two artists here by their best-known associations and move on. Kramer, of course, has a history stretching back to the early 80s that over the decades has swerved with a sharp acuity through the founding of Shimmy Disc Records (twice, mind you), forming Bongwater with Ann Magnuson and David Licht late in that decade, touring with the likes of Butthole Surfers, being an integral part of Shockabilly, the Chadbournes and New York Gong, has helped 1/2 Japanese’s Jad Fair become a household name and has even been involved with the fucking Fugs, for chrissake and that is very much a CliffsNotes version because otherwise we’d be here for days. Then there’s Pan American’s Mark Nelson, who’s CV isn’t perhaps as lengthy as that of his partner in this new project but who has his own none-too-shabby résumé, not least of which, beyond the sublime, explorative Pan American, is his work in Labradford and that band’s offshoot Anjou. It’s the pairing of artists such as these that helps keep the fires of our passion and curiosity stoked here at SEM which in turn helps us remain ageless in the face all the mirror-fed evidence to the contrary which, let’s be honest, is why music – why fine art in general – lures us ever further in to its clutches in the first place. And, that, rather handily, leads us back to the track at hand.

While that snapshot history above doesn’t touch on it, the fact is Kramer has been quite immersed in the liminal possibilities of what might be termed the ‘pop ambient’ since the current decade began. From the “full-throated hush” of 2021’s And The Wind Blew It All Away through the joyful melancholia of that same year’s Winterlong single to 2022’s remarkable Music for Films Edited by Moths, not to mention his work with other artists such as Laraaji, the guy’s been plumbing those particular depths with some aplomb so it’s perhaps no surprise we’d find him teaming up with Mr. Nelson, who’s been on a very similar vector pretty much his entire career, producing a body of work for which the phrase ‘a surging lurking beauty’ is both an aesthetic constant and, it would seem, a lifetime mission statement. For further – and perhaps definitive – context, the 2000-released 360 Business/360 Bypass featured Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk from kindred spirits Low.

All that in mind, how could we not be honored to preview the moving, hypnotic, lithe “The Miner’s Pale Child” from the pair’s Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road album due out on Shimmy Disc March 22nd. That it’s mesmerizing is no surprise, nor is the fact that it’s echoic and lonely as human longing, the thing, it would seem, built somewhat beguilingly from the inside out with an intuitive grace that only musicians of this caliber and patience and, most important, faith in themselves and their process could create. Emerging as if from a mist made of some sort of meditative static, a tone totters on the border between atonal and harmonic like the toll of a clock tower heard through the warp of time. It’s as if one can sense, maybe even see, said child appearing sylph-like out of that spellbinding miasma of suggestion and mystery, lost for a moment in one of those oddly particular epiphanies of childhood, the thrum of the mines, of the dripping forest around them, conjuring a kind of wonder out of the mud and noise of their environment. While without a doubt your and everyone else’s impression will, to some extent, stray from what’s just been described, we’re quite certain that the state this track – and the album entire, which we’ve heard and can thus make such a guarantee – will induce in you is nothing short of transportive, that it will, like music of this type is intended to do, blend with whatever mood you’re in and lead you toward places you didn’t see coming but welcome like a dreamstate you didn’t realize you were waiting for. While in almost any other context advising you to “click and get lost” would be profoundly rude, in this instance, well, it’s the nicest advice we could possibly give. [feature photo courtesy Kramer; pre-order your copy of Reverberations of Non-Stop Trafficc on Redding Road here]