Premiere: Vernal Equinox – Motion Of Sound

There was a whizzing noise as the machine sprung to life with abrupt precision at the mere touch of a button. The motion of sound echoed through the factory as the industrial rumble of metal groaned in the dead of night. Here at the printing plant they were responsible for ensuring that information travelled far and wide, it was their job to guarantee that there would be a paper to be read upon the rise of the morning sun. No edition could be missed for then the world might descend into unfounded chaos – a world of fake news without a tabloid presence to guide would be perilous and hateful. Who then, would speak truth?

Vernal Equinox is set to release an album on the newly formed record label Aural Medium, an imprint founded by Linus Booth and Seance Centre. He describes the release of the album and the rationale behind the LP below:

“I first encountered the members of Vernal Equinox, Steve Brenner and Timothy Rempel, when I would skip high school with my best friend Todd Nickolas (ADSR) who’d play me electronic records after we lurked in the keyboard shop at Sherwood Music in Kitchener, eyeballing synths and drum machines financially out of our reach. Unbeknownst to me, Steve and Timothy both worked in the shop, and leveraged their employee discount to build up an enviable battalion of gear in their aptly named Sync Studios, in Steve’s basement. It was there, after their shifts at the music shop, that they spent a year working out all the material for the album, and when they had every part sequenced, they saved their settings, unplugged hundreds of cables and lugged everything to Airtight Studios across town and recorded the album. The duo self-released the album, and not knowing exactly how to sell it, decided to try and brand it as New Age. Inspired by the genre’s most successful label Windham Hill, they adorned the album with a photo of a sunset that Brenner had shot. They even decided to record some seagulls to fit the mould, and drove 130 km north to Lake Huron with a bag of day old Tim Horton doughnuts. 

Fast forward to a few years ago when Todd sent me a copy of Brenner's cassette works reminding me that we knew Steve from the keyboard shop. Shortly after, I met Brenner at his local Tim Horton's where I bought him a large double-double and we starting planning the reissue. Everything about the album reminds me of my youth, the smell of the woods in autumn, underage drinking and smoking on the tracks, the TD soundtracks to Risky Business and Miracle Mile, and my father’s Windham Hill records. Even the chill-out records I became obsessed with, The KLF, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works and Boards of Canada's melancholic NFB inspired electronica. Of course these came out years after the album was released, but somehow Steve and Tim channeled it all back then, creating something simultaneously so grounded in time and place, but years ahead of its time."

Buy HERE.