Squnders is the trio, that includes guitarists Wendy Eisenberg and David Grubbs alongside multi-instrumentalist and legendary producer Kramer. The group was born from a spontaneous, exploratory afternoon studio session.

The band, recently announced their new album Skantagio, will drop on August 22nd via Shimmy-Disc, along with lead single, “Theme For Skantagio.” Of the album’s title, Grubbs explains:

“Skantagio is a word from Ancient Greek that means ‘sounding lead’ — a rudimentary navigational instrument to determine depth in water — and I learned of it through an interview that I did with Tony Conrad, where Tony had this to say:

“All of this is a part of dredging the past up into the present and, like a sperm whale, taking in a huge mouthful of stuff and spitting out the water to leave the food behind. That idea of time as something that you see ahead or behind and then may not see at all straight ahead is an interesting metaphor. You can think of it that way, or you can think of time being visible in all of those aspects in the present.”

It appeals to me as a word for taking a measurement, understanding the depth one finds oneself in, and doing so with the simplest means possible.

This new album follows upon the more active, preliminary explorations of ‘If a Body Meet a Body’ with a deepening of trust and comfort with one another that one can practically hear unfolding in this sequence of improvisations — still part of our first meeting. “First meeting, best meeting.”

Accompanied by a piece of Ambient-Cinema created by Kramer (as all videos for this LP will be), the lead-single begins with a title card reading: “All of this is a part of dredging the past into the present.” What follows is a collage of vintage footage: ordinary people walking, a child licking a spoon — then, suddenly, devastation. Fires tear through buildings. Smoke fills the sky.

Grubbs says the track finds the group “playing with fire,” and that metaphor becomes literal: a gentle instrumental amble gives way to total conflagration, the visuals matching the scale of the music’s emotional burn. The ultimate destruction, he notes, “leaves one speechless.”

Squanders
Skantagio
Tracklisting
Shimmy Disc

Side A:
1. Theme for Skantagio
2. Theme for Narcoleptics
3. Theme for Insufficient Overpreparation
4. Theme for Fruitful Tangents

Side B:
1. Theme for All Unawares
2. Theme for The Path Made Visible
3. Theme for Undivided Neglect

ptr-order Skantagio HERE