In recognizing and celebrating mutual communities, and with ambition to both envision a better world and hold onto precious local histories, Freedom To Spend shares New Neighborhoods, a collection of sixteen new works by an international, intergenerational cast of artists acknowledging, and pushing forward, the sonic path traveled by Ernest Hood, the musician and field recordist from Portland, Oregon responsible for the 1975 “joy in reminiscence” Neighborhoods.
For New Neighborhoods, artists from different vantages around the world were invited to contribute sound works incorporating field recordings from their immediate and dreamed surroundings as a focal, but not necessarily primary, component. The composers who volunteered their services include Todd Barton, Felicia Atkinson, Ka Baird, CV & JAB, Lieven Martens, Space Afrika, Nailah Hunter, Jefre-Cantu Ledesma, bookworms, Melanie Velarde, Roberto Carlos Lange (Helado Negro), Barraco Barner, Dylan Moon, J D Emmanuel, Sugai Ken, and Like A Villain.
The liner notes for the original edition of Neighborhoods clarify that the album “is a rather personal thing to be reflected up (as musical cinematography) alone.” New Neighborhoods nurtures a similar independence that slowly ignites sensory tinder in its poetic unfolding. The composers’ interior terrains interact with their adjacent landscapes, from Harlem to The Hague, compelled by a mysterious, unconscious force. The sounds captured and considered in this collection shimmer under the intimate, extraordinary depiction of everyday life.
There is a sensitivity to detail in the artists’ submissions, which are neither strictly field recordings or ambient music, but rather an environmental tapestry of both. While many of the songs were composed in solitude, they invite the listener to imagine being there, exploring a parallel environment familiar yet obscured. As a whole, the collection suspends sound in lucidity; the dream-reality of these recordings unravel and then immediately rewind before the listener, encouraging new rituals of perception.
All proceeds from the first edition of this collection will benefit the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD)’s Center for Community Leadership (CCL) program, one of New York City’s longest-running organizer training programs, providing grassroots leaders and organizations with the skills, resources, and community necessary to advance sustainable political change on a local and regional level. ANHD is a coalition of community groups across New York City using research, advocacy, and grassroots to build equity and justice in their neighborhoods and citywide. ANHD’s mission supports lower income and working-class communities by developing affordable housing, an essential effort during the COVID-19 pandemic, where low-income, BIPOC communities have been hit the hardest. Member organizations of ANHD have provided 80,000 units to this date, and homes for almost 100,000 people.
New Neighborhoods is a dose of awakening, extracted by a group of artists who share their inner process with us and from us. A new kind of togetherness. A limited cassette edition of New Neighborhoods will be made available on October 2, 2020 from Freedom To Spend and RVNG Intl. alongside digital formats.
released October 2, 2020
All proceeds from the first edition of this collection will benefit the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD)’s Center for Community Leadership (CCL) program, one of New York City’s longest-running organizer training programs, providing grassroots leaders and organizations with the skills, resources, and community necessary to advance sustainable political change on a local and regional level.
Todd Barton - Ashland Ambience
Recorded in Ashland, Oregon
Felicia Atkinson - The Willow
Recorded in Prospect Park (Brooklyn, NY), The Barbican (London, UK), and La Becque (La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland)
Published by Mute Song
Ka Baird - West End
Recorded in Decatur, Illinois
Field recordings by Camilla Padgitt-Coles, Ka Baird, and Matt Baird
CV & JAB - Saint-Gilles Lockdown in Three Parts
Recorded in Brussels, Belgium by Christina Vantzou and John Also Bennett, March and April 2020
Lieven Martens - Five elements, five repetitions
Recorded in Antwerp, Belgium
Space Afrika - 217
Recorded in Manchester, United Kingdom
Nailah Hunter - Hidden Tiger Lily
Recorded in Los Angeles and Yosemite, California
Jefre Cantu Ledesma - Dharani for Morningside Park
Recorded in Harlem (New York, NY)
bookworms - fluctuations in temperature
Recorded in Bushwick (Brooklyn, NY)
Melanie Velarde - NYC Files
Recorded in New York, NY, 2018
Roberto Carlos Lange - A worm in an apple
Recorded in Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn, NY)
Barraco Barner - Untitled (compressed)
Recorded in Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn, NY)
Dylan Moon - Wales
Recorded in Wales, United Kingdom
J D Emmanuel - Shenandoah, Texas
Recorded in J D’s backyard in Shenandoah, Texas
Sugai Ken - Symphonic "Joya no Kane”
Recorded in Kanagawa, Japan
Like A Villain - What’s happening to me
Recorded in Brooklyn and Queens, NY
Compiled by John Also Bennett for Freedom to Spend
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork by Will Work For Good
Inspired by Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods
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