0 Menu

Host - Time Smoking A Picture [Vinyl LP]

$15.00

SHIPPING NOW

Here's LP2 from Host. Black vinyl, black inner sleeves, heavy 400gsm reverse board jackets.

Time Smoking a Picture is the result of attempts to mimic classical compositions with comparatively crude instrumentation—electric guitar, grand piano, cello, and snare drum. The album is a departure from Host’s 2014 eponymous debut as it shifts away from loop-based music onto linear musical structures—resulting in a 31 minute piece of music comprised of distinct but connected segments.

Trained on classical piano and guitar, Alex Maddalena (Host) wrote the album after revisiting a binder of classical sheet music from his childhood and finding unexpected tonal links between his recent ambient guitar experimentation and centuries-old piano compositions.

The album title comes from a William Hogarth etching of the same name, which depicts Father Time’s scythe piercing a painting while he blows smoke onto it. The etching is a critique of the once-popular notion that art improved with time, and hints that there is often a false reverence of timeworn classics. (“Time is not a beautifier, but a destroyer.”) The result is a pastiche of these influences—soaring guitar melodies, ambient builds, cello dirges, and oblique military marches. The album was recorded in 4 different houses on the East Coast of the United States over the course of 3 years.