Dave Harrington - The Pictures
Minaret Records 024
The Pictures, Dave Harrington's sprawling new LP (out October 20th, 2023 via Minaret Records), is his most ambitious and personal album yet. The 59-minute, 27-song record is a love letter to the cinema. It’s a showcase for his eclectic taste. It’s a quiet nod to his father. It’s a love song to his family. It’s a heady journey through abstraction and back.
Harrington plays every instrument on the album, from his usual guitar (sometimes warped and twisted, other times gently strummed or plucked in earnest and on-the-sleeve homage to heroes like Bill Frisell or Jerry Garcia) in addition to a collection of percussion, drums, upright bass, keyboards, and his fretless Turkish banjo. The results are pushed through Harrington’s 21st Century Schizoid-Teo Macero post-production approach, leading to a collection of music that is equal parts frenetic beat-dub mixtape and open-hearted “plays for the lovers” ballads.
Ghosts of film and television past whisper through these tapestries offering notes to loved ones, haiku-hymns for lost ones, and meditations on what it all might mean if we put it together. Sometimes we may feel we can speak to the heart of everything. But sometimes in life there are no words—so, we have the pictures.
Before moving to Los Angeles in 2019, Harrington spent more than a decade in his hometown of New York City working across many different musical communities from downtown improvisation to Brooklyn indie and jambands to warehouse techno, scoring independent films, and producing albums for other artists. He is currently a member of the bands Taper’s Choice and DARKSIDE, and leads his own improvisational groups including Dave Harrington’s Pranksters West, and various assemblies of improvisers.
As a collaborator, Harrington has recorded or performed with artists including Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions, Nels Cline, Miho Hatori, Alanis Morisette, John Medeski, Nate Mercereau, Greg Fox, Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker), Yuka Honda, Joe Russo, Ian Chang, Karina Rykman, Chris Forsyth, Mauro Refosco, Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), Stuart Bogie, Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), The Antlers, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, Kimbra, Patrick Shiroishi, Sophia Brous, Innov Gnawa, Spencer Zahn, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Marshall Allen & The Sun Ra Arkestra, Angel Deradoorian, and many more.