EP · 2013

Salt Hours

Five patient after-hours builds recorded in a rehearsal room above a Lisbon bakery, about work, night and small beginnings.

Tracks

1. First Pay Packet, Midnight ShiftThe first thing I ever finished: a seventeen-year-old's first night shift, hopeful and a little crooked. I opened with it because every beginning is a name tag on slightly wrong.warm house, late-night groove3:41
2. Last Bus Across the RiverThe last bus along the river, yellow light on sleepy faces. I recorded it with the tape loop running under the whole thing like a slow tide.dreamy house, tape-loop house4:18
3. Laundromat LightA laundromat at one a.m. is the best club in the city. This is the one the Friday crowd started asking for by name.groovy house, chicago-leaning3:14
4. Window Seat, Upper DeckRain on the glass of the upper deck, nobody talking. I let the bass stay low and the vocal stay barely there.hushed deep house, ambient house4:51
5. Last Day, Keys on the DeskForty years of Mondays, and then keys on a desk. I closed the EP here because the restraint is the point, like a fado that stops before it breaks.wistful deep house, fado-tinged3:40

Liner notes

I made these in the rented room above the bakery, with the smell of bread coming up through the floor at four in the morning. Everything is one take, because I didn't know yet how to do it any other way. The tracks run long because the friends who ran the Friday night club told me to let the room breathe, and I did. If you hear salt in it, that's the window, which never quite closed.

Vanta Lux