Madrague/Saména EP CREDITS
Written, produced & performed by BEN TOUSLEY between 2021-2024 in MARSEILLE and NEW YORK CITY
Featuring:
trombone • ANDY CLAUSEN
harp • JACQUI CORNETTA of SETTIMO CIELO
trumpet • RILEY MULHERKAR
lapsteel • BEN TOUSLEY
Mixed by GABEL D’AMICO
Mastering and lacquer cut by Ruy Mariné at Dubplates & Mastering
Additional production by GABEL D’AMICO
Additional brass production by ANDY CLAUSEN
Art direction & design by LATTICE GROVE CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Animation & illustration by DANIEL BERMUDEZ
Cymatics by JESSE LAUGHTER
Super 8 & TELESCOPE footage by BEN TOUSLEY
Additional footage by MARVIN MASTROIANNI and SAMUEL MCGUIRE
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Written in Marseille and New York City on the winds of major change, Madrague/Saména EP is an audiovisual story cycle in four parts that captures processes of creation, expectation, struggle, and release in life, art, and nature.
Ben Tousley touches sound with the same wide eyes and buoyant melancholy he brings to the visual. With mixing and additional sound design by Gabel D’Amico, Tousley’s experimental production style weaves lapsteel, an OP-1, and radio samples together with the freewheeling harp of Jacqui Cornetta, the blazing trumpet of Riley Mulherkar, and the silvery trombone and ethereal brass processing of Andy Clausen. Madrague/Saména takes you over with songs at once maximal and crystalline.
With the full-length visualizers and packaging, happy rendezvous emerged along the way—visual collaborations via the hallucinatory cymatics of Jesse Laughter, the poppy nostalgia of animator Daniel Bermudez, and syrupy landscape footage by Marvin Mastroianni intertwine with analog photography, Super 8 and telescope footage, and design by the artist himself.
High hopes. Desperate measures. Unforeseen Plans.
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A1. One eye closed, the other wide in focus. Shaky hands and a mark that moves. A piano drops from the sky. What are you going to do about it?
A2. Fevered hallucinations, angel stones inside of rocks—you only have to find how to crack them open. Clik! Klonk! Zoom! In the wind’s arms, dance with gravity. Two swoops down, which way is up? Ride the air.
B1. A white hot sun. Look, but take care: it sparkles and burns. The day you’ve always longed for could still happen. But where can gravity take you but down, little falling BIRD? It’s not up to you.
B2. Put a feather in your cap: It’s all okay, perhaps it always was. Isn’t life too short to get caught in these old traps? That’s all folks, see you next time.