Underneath winter’s cold full moon, bright snow the mirror-keeper of their secrets, Frail Talk spent two days recording live as a four-piece band, capturing this EP to two-inch tape. Songs of confession and supplication, like a circle and a vision, this music arrives as a tactile artifact of de-digitized humanity, with the last 3 tracks being recorded in one continuous pass on the first take.
Cor Wright and Al Woodchek collaborated with Tobias Bank (drums + vocals) and Jakob Mueller (bass) to usher their songs into physical form with the support of producer/engineer Mark Anderson. To create Circles & Visions, Frail Talk narrowed in on the volatility of tape, using improvisation (as in the title track itself) and the organic sounds of the room as a form of trans-analog substantiation.
In Circles & Visions, Cor and Al move beyond the origin stories and glistening nostalgia of their first two LPs to reckon with tragedy, pain, and fear as impassable objects that require a heart to both soften and strengthen. These songs were written in and for the moments when time splinters, when what appears to be known evaporates. What remains is to wonder if grief for what is lost can coexist with a demand for hope, as offered in the line, “Hand to hold is all we have; hold mine tighter, please.”