Mary Lattimore
Mary Lattimore is a Los Angeles-based harpist. She experiments with effects through her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand pedal harp, concocting half-structured improvisations which can include both ambient glitter and unsettling noise. Her first solo record, the Withdrawing Room, was released on Desire Path Recordings in 2014. The solo recordings that followed, At the Dam and Collected Pieces, were released by Ghostly International.
Mary has also recorded synth + harp duo projects with Elysse Thebner Miller (And the Birds Flew Overhead) and Jeff Zeigler (Slant of Light) and has co-written reimagined scores for the 1968 experimental silent film Le Revelateur, directed by Philippe Garrel (who approved of the project), and the Czech New Wave classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, and performed these scores live throughout the US with Jeff Zeigler and the Valerie Project, respectively. She has contributed and written harp parts for such artists as Kurt Vile, Thurston Moore, Sharon Van Etten, Meg Baird, Steve Gunn, the Clientele, Hop Along, Jarvis Cocker, Karen Elson, Ed Askew and Quilt.
Ghostly International released her third solo record in late spring of 2018.
Flowertown
>> Flowertown is Karina Gill and Michael Ramos. The San Francisco duo first wrote a song together because their respective projects (Cindy + Tony Jay) were scheduled to play a show together in March 2020. The show didn't happen, but as shelter-in-place took effect they started trading song ideas and writing collaboratively, sending voice memos back and forth and eventually recording the songs in Karina’s basement on a 4 track. “…Flowertown is indebted to the great works of post-Velvets indie: Galaxie 500’s trilogy, Cannanes A Love Affair with Nature, Low’s I Could Live in Hope, ’90-’93 Yo La Tengo, but thankfully they didn’t forget to write songs and find their own voices and charm inside that sound. If you wander the outer avenues out to Land’s End with this in your headphones, you may float away into oblivion. This feels like a band that is about to write a timeless album, and I am more than ready with my PayPal login info.” – Glenn Donaldson, Freeform Freakout
San Kazakgascar
>> The new San Kazakgascar album didn’t come together in the way it typically might. We had some song skeletons that we had been doing loose improvised versions of with different players in different cities, a couple of older songs we wanted to improve on, and some brand new stuff. In late 2019, things seemed scattered, Kaz-wise, until I discovered that there was a really good drummer living down the street from me. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally beginning to learn that sometimes you have to actually wait for the right people and the right time. And then strike! We began recording Emotional Crevasse in January 2020, not knowing how much more of an emotional crevasse we would find ourselves in a few months later. Ninety-five percent of the album was recorded and in the can before covid-lockdown commenced. Anchored by guitarist Jed Brewer, bassist Greg Hain, and new drummer Anthony Occipinti, the album also features contributions from clarinetist Rachel Freund, flute/hulusi- player Linda Michelle Hardy, keyboardist Matthew Kretzman, saxophonist Chris Hall, cellist Colleen T. Kelly, bass clarinetist James Jaroba Barnes, vocalist Christine Shields, and a dash of throat-singing from Arrington de Dionyso. Emotional Crevasse is all over the place. There are the characteristic Kazakgascar quasi-Middle Eastern psych riffs, but also some quiet acoustic bits, and some long tones/drones..."