Twinsleep (Ambient Project of John Hayes, Maxy Dutcher) Shares “A Taste of Spring”; Announce Debut Album
March 31, 2023 BY Jason Currell
Today, Twinsleep, the ambient duo of Denver-based artist John Hayes and Missoula-based artist Maxy Dutcher, announce their self-titled debut album with the release of new song “A Taste of Spring.”
What started as the casual trading of recordings back and forth between two like-minded musicians soon blossomed into a full-length album of electro-ambient compositions that mimic the subtle intricacies of nature. Their debut almost seems to embody the circadian rhythms found within the change of seasons. “A Taste of Spring” plays into this theme with warbly piano lines running through an old dictaphone.
Headphone Commute caught up with Maxy Dutcher to talk about his process in the studio. Read the interview here.
Dutcher elaborates on the new song: “For A Taste of Spring we used layered tape loops of a few piano notes. This became the foundation to build the rest of the track around. -All of these raised noise floors create a static sound, mimicking a trickling stream. The guitar and bass swells give the track structure and are something in between mournful and hopeful. It makes you feel like you’ve just gone through something really heavy but somehow things will turn out okay. – Like Spring is right around the corner.”
“A Taste of Spring” will join singles “Old Snow,” “Outlier,” and “Kin,” to appear on Twinsleep’s self-titled debut album out May 26th via Nettwerk.
Listen to “A Taste of Spring” on all digital retailers:
https://twinsleep.ffm.to/tasteofspring
ABOUT TWINSLEEP:
Twinsleep’s debut is a marvel of ambient music, with gorgeous compositions that achieve pure weightlessness while possessing a grounded sense of purpose. John Hayes and Maxy Dutcher’s second collaboration together – first under the moniker Twinsleep — is impressionistic in all the right ways, every swell and swoon conjuring naturalistic imagery and a distinct sense of mood. A commonly held misconception about ambient music is that it’s background music to put on when you don’t want to listen too closely—but zoom in and Twinsleep is teeming with detail amidst its opalescent drones and hovering melodies, an impressive achievement from an inspired creative pairing.
The Twinsleep project follows Hayes and Dutcher’s stunning 2020 release Borealis and marks the latest evolution in their individual careers as well as creative partnership. Both musicians’ careers thus far have contained noticeable parallels—early beginnings in music that followed in rejecting formal teaching, artistic exploration brought upon by adversity, a gear-focused love of making electronic music—which made their initial collision even more serendipitous. After discovering Dutcher’s work thanks to an editorial campaign, Hayes asked him for a remix of “Marin,” from his 2018 album By the Woods, and the pair quickly struck up a collaborative friendship. “As soon as I saw his page and heard his stuff, I was like, ‘Whoa, this dude’s awesome,’” Dutcher recalls. “Our relationship snowballed from there.”
TWINSLEEP IN THE PRESS…
“…the project captures an essence of the vast, timbered landscapes of America’s Mountain West in its contemplative soundscapes and organic weave of electronics with acoustic textures.”
– Stationary Travels
“Trafficking in a hushed kind of neo-classical / ambient / electroacoustic sound based on shared improvisations and deeply felt drones, “Kin” is a gorgeous and reflective piece of music that slowly breathes and pulses with life.”
– Tome to the Weather Machine
“…a meditative and introspective ambient piece that feels like a journey through the body and spirit, into a world where you can’t possibly imagine spoken word having any meaning. It’s got haunting elements of instrumentation and atmosphere that reminds a bit of artists such as Nils Frahm.”
– We All Want Someone to Shout For
