Late last year, we previewed Language At An Angle, the new album from Philadelphia-based composer, improviser and interdisciplinary artist Sam Wenc, coming soon via Lobby Art Editions. After fifteen albums released under the moniker Post Moves, this is the first that bears his own name, though it still very much represents a continuation of that wider body of work. “Inspired by and dedicated to pedal steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn who passed away earlier in the year,” we wrote in our piece, “the record is a lesson in the possibilities of the instrument, one grounded in years of experience and deepened by an ongoing practice of sitting meditation, as well as a reminder of the raw power of art. Perhaps the only real way we can truly confront the unknowable and create meaning, this record suggests, is to continue the work of our forebears and never stop pushing the boundaries.”
With the release of the album fast approaching, Sam Wenc has returned with latest single, ‘Run the River Clear’. In contrast to the momentum of its predecessor, the new single is marked by a sound far more drifting and amorphous. One where passages of reserved, ruminative texture are punctuated by periods of intensity. Though each time one such chorus announces itself, a sense of unravelling tugs at the assertive tones, as though the song’s effort to coalesce into something more emphatic is held back by a denaturing of the fabric from which it is cut.
“This feels like the strangest song on the record to me,” Wenc reveals. “It ebbs between quiet, melancholic phrases and emphatic, near-shoegaze choruses. I was surprised by how large it all sounded when put together—it felt like a place I hadn’t expected to land. The title is a slightly modified wording of something a friend used to say years ago about creative practice: ‘running water clears itself.'”
