We’ve followed the work on New York-based composer Brendan Principato, AKA Saapato, for a number of years, praising his ability to evoke the environment around us through music. Whether focusing on the natural (like 2021’s Bird Sanctuary EP or more recent album In Alaska), the human (as with Singing House I & II) or, as with last year’s Decomposition: Fox on a Highway, the (sometimes literal) collision of the two, Saapato pairs layers of manipulated field recordings and vivid electronics to build his own small worlds. Compositions as detailed as any ecosystem and attuned to both the sentient and inanimate features of a given space.
Set for release later this month via Window Sill Records, with a cassette edition by Aural Canyon, Seasons Turn Like Pages is a brand new album which sees Principato continue to test the boundaries of the Saapato project. As the title suggests, the record is concerned with passage of time, each of its tracks representing a snapshot of a specific period taken over a year within a forest. Experienced as a whole, the result serves as a chronicle not only of a specific time and place, but also the change and constancy which marks the annual cycle within the natural world. Lead single and opener ‘Willow’ kicks things off, not only introducing the overall tone of the release but also going some way to prepare the listener so they might experience it properly. A song written from the perspective of a dreaming dog, Willow. “Willow is a Great Pyrenees which means she’s constantly on guard, looking to protect her herd (me) from danger,” Principato explains:
When she falls asleep at night she looks like she’s dreaming so deeply, so at peace and relaxed to be off the clock. In her dream, I imagine her running through a wildflower meadow watching Canada geese pass by overhead. Observing Willow on guard when she really doesn’t have to be has led me to realize all of the ways that I am metaphorically “on guard” in my own life, and in response has helped me to try and be more like the dreaming version of Willow. It’s a song about a dog dream and at the same time about reminding myself to step back and enjoy the dream.