One of our very favorites, Semaphora, just released their second album today! Yes, right now. No apologies needed if you minimize this tab and go check it out on Bandcamp right now. When we interviewed Lydia Arachne from the band on our podcast earlier this year, she teased that the new album, Sister Administrator, was entering its final stages. Needless to say, we are incredibly excited about Sister Administrator. For one, the Semaphora debut, Zoonotic, is one of our favorite records to spin during the day, and for two, the select tracks that the band has played live have been nothing short of stunning.
Sister Administrator, like Zoonotic, is built around a theme. This go around, songwriter Lydia Arachne explores our back-and-forth with old technology, for all of its invasiveness (in both directions), pervasiveness; its ecstasy and agony. Pair that thoughtfulness with sonically rich, layered instrumentation, and you get Connecticut’s premiere anthropological yacht rock band. And hey, if you aren’t into the whole digital thing, you can help fund the production of Sister Administrator on vinyl here at Indiegogo. The vinyl will be out next year around May! If you want to hear more about it, check out the album release trailer below, or our podcast (embedded below!).
On this record, Lydia Arachne plays [*takes deep breath*] guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, accordion, cello, saxophones (yes, both alto and tenor), clarinets (both alto and soprano), flute, trumpet, horns (of the French and baritone varieties), and kalimba. We are not sure who is playing the hurdy-gurdy on “Paperclip”, however. As Arachne explains in the album release trailer, part of the gap between Zoonotic and Sister Administrator — which was only three years, so it’s not that long of a time anyways — was so she could learn to play saxophone. Hear that sweet, sweet saxophone’s blistering solo on “Pencil”, one of our early favorites. Yeah, you thought your DIY band was “DIY” until you saw this album’s credits. Arachne is joined by a small chorus of incredible vocalists: Elizabeth Ashkins and Gina Rizzo (who you may remember from Zoonotic) along with Alyssa Morrin, Monica Rizzo, and David Reeves. And if that all sounds like “a lot” (“a lot” here, spoken with twitter emphasis), it is, but one of the things we love about Semaphora is just how smooth and pleasurable the music is. It’s musically rich and complex, but it still offers many of the same joys as great pop music.
OK, NOW I feel ready to start listing out favorite records of 2020.
