Mesmerizer by Angela Winter

★ N.B. This is the same album released in May 2024 on Hard Return and is posted here with permission of the label. ★ https://hardreturn.bandcamp.com/album/mesmerizer

ABOUT MESMERIZER

A drone oscillator, a delay or two, and a trio of reverbs.

These were my only instruments.

I needed a recording signal that was clean and quiet because the sound in my home studio was anything but during a nearly two-year construction project at the house next door. Though my recordings typically feature vocals, condenser mics were out of the question. Stage mics were out; even acoustic instruments with cables or contact mics were out. So I chose a stripped-down rig of electronics for its ability to go direct-in to a recorder.

All performances are live, with just a bit of EQ and compression added later.

I named the first track “sphenoid” because I could feel its pulse vibrate the eponymous butterfly-shaped cranial bone in my skull. Fly, little bone, I thought. Take me somewhere new.

The second track floated in months later. After it was done and I listened to the recording, pleasantly stunned, I wrote “mesmerizer” in my mix notebook.

I recorded the third track during the emergence of Brood XIX cicadas in North Carolina, where I live. Millions of these winged insects emerge from dormancy in thirteen-year cycles, and when they do, the woods come alive with their mating song—an eerie, high-pitched whir that sounds like an alien spacecraft in an old sci-fi movie. As I mixed “emergence,” a cicada landed on my studio window. I looked through the glass into its orange eyes, marveling at how such a small creature can make such rich, resonant sounds.

Drones are hypnotic transportation devices, musical meditations, dream streams. I began listening to them deeply in 2020, and I’ll forever be grateful for their transcendent medicine.

I hope you enjoy listening, and thanks for your support!

—Angela Winter

Ambient, ritual, and experimental music for thresholds, where synths, keys, and strings meet otherworldly vocals, shimmering drones, and overtones.

“Beautifully haunting.” —Bandcamp Daily

“Stunning.” —Foxy Digitalis

“Spellbinding” —Lost and Found Sounds

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