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PO: Inventions - Maze of Woods (Explosions In the Sky, Eluvium)


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Inventions are the collaborative sum of longtime friends Matthew Cooper of Eluvium, and Mark T. Smith of Explosions In The Sky. Their 2014 eponymous debut album introduced an ambition to create music that was both challenging and comforting. Their new album, Maze of Woods, opens with a vocal sample declaring, "I wanted to do something that I don't know how to do." Using this as a mission statement, Inventions have crafted a complex and exuberant album from an array of instruments, samples, found sounds, beats, chants, and raw bursts of noise, with a much greater emphasis on strong vocal accompaniment in every song. Two albums released in the span of 11 months speaks to the drive that these two have felt since they started playing together. Much like on the first record, they again mixed the album in a house on the Oregon coastline, with final mixing and production all done by Smith and Cooper. Inventions have stated that much of the inspiration for Maze of Woods comes from the closing paragraph of Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. In that paragraph, Johnson describes the nonverbal howl of a feral wolf boy, a pre-language that is yearning and instinctual; a statement of wordless distress and love. Maze of Woods is the product of two masters of their craft getting lost in the wilderness, "doing something that they don't know how to do," and emerging with something wholly unexpected and beguilingly beautiful.

 

MAZE OF WOODS+REMIXED COLORED VINYL BUNDLE (EDITION OF 300): For a very limited time, and while supplies last, we are offering a limited-edition colored vinyl bundle. This includes Inventions' stirring new album, Maze of Woods, plus a special additional bonus LP of remixes, featuring The Field, Leyland Kirby (Caretaker, V/Vm), and A Winged Victory For The Sullen (their first-ever remix)! This bundle is the ONLY way to get the colored vinyl of Maze of Woods, and the Remixed LP is not sold separately.

 



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To each his own. I think that anyone expecting something that resembles EITS or Eluvium would probably walk away disappointed; not that this was necessarily the case for you, but I found that it worked best to put on with no real expectations. Outside of beatiful soundscapes, that is.

Yeah, it's more just personal taste and not that I think they are bad or anything. Just something about it that didn't do it for me and didn't have me coming back. I feel like the past couple Matt Cooper releases are like that for me though.

Either way, not trying to derail too much. The new song sounds good.

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