This well known story follows a never-ending thread that is worn yet unbroken. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that run neatly through the fragile, meticulous fabric of the mundane and the homelike realms we rarely recognize as so difficult to preserve. It could be retold a million times, like an unraveling tapestry, and still feel new. It is gently lulling us into the quiet purpose of everyday rituals that soothe a mind otherwise shadowed by the threat of disarray.
‘Every Day I Weave on the Great Loom’ emerges from this very impulse. It is the urge to construct a safe haven, one that echoes the fantastical landscapes of Márton Tóth’s artwork. Against the backdrop of a chaotic world, it is built slowly, through the patient rewards of labour and craft, recalling the enduring figure of Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey. Released via the North Carolina-based independent label sound as language, Plume Girl and Home Baker’s joint experimental epic interlaces voice and wind instruments into a liminal space suspended between the sacred and the earthly. In doing so, it also reflects the distinct yet converging musical paths of the Austin-based partners in both life and sound.
Hindustani-American musician Sowmya Somanath, performing as Plume Girl, continues to expand her engagement with Hindustani and Carnatic traditions, infusing them with a subtle affinity for pop melodicism. Her modulated voice flows with a near-seraphic clarity above the dense, yet lightly flickering compositions. Meanwhile, Walter Nichols, known as Home Baker, explores the expressive possibilities of wind instrumentation through EWI (electronic wind instrument), grounding the work’s more elusive qualities with a tactile presence. Binding these elements together is the Bastl Thyme digital tape machine, through which both voice and EWI are processed, delayed, and looped, opening the music into vast, unrestrained sonic space.
Yet despite this expansiveness, a sense of continuity persists. An ever-unfolding journey shaped by deliberation and care. Each movement within the recording is guided by patience and an intuitive understanding between the two musicians, resulting in a work that feels both intimately woven and endlessly extending.
