Rhian Sheehan & Arli Liberman release album ‘Traces’
Loop is proud to present Traces, a collaborative album from New Zealand musicians, composers and producers Rhian Sheehan & Arli Liberman.
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Both known for their composition work and original music, this album sees them combining to create an electronic world sounding like nothing else. The whole album sees textures develop slowly, exploring the dimensions of physical space, before blooming boldly into wondrous crests of sound.
Written and recorded over eight days in Wellington and Auckland, the album began as a creative outlet for Sheehan & Liberman, blending electronic, ambient, post-rock and futuristic soundscapes.
While busy with their day jobs composing for the screen, Traces represented a chance for both to collaborate on something wholly their own. The resulting album is a true experience and journey into an electronic-inspired wormhole.
Traces is an album that immerses listeners in a sci-fi world that feels both distant and familiar, like a forgotten past or an undiscovered future. It offers an immersive, yet intimate cinematic experience that unfolds like the soundtrack to an unmade film, all while staying true to their distinct styles and crafting a vivid, cinematic journey.
The album was recorded in two bursts of creative output: first at Surgery Studios in Wellington, and then completed at Auckland’s Roundhead Studios. The fully immersive album was then completed in Spatial Audio at Roundhead Studios, giving the cinematic sounds the whole audio experience it deserves. The album arrives alongside a fully-formed suite of artwork and video content, originally created by multimedia artist Sam Caldwell, whose unique work fits perfectly into the distinctive worlds being created by Sheehan & Liberman.
Traces is an album that sounds warmly familiar, yet truly alien. A combination of traditional sounds taking in a foreign direction, creating a completely unique listening experience.
The album prominently features evocative, haunting, and sometimes futuristic sounds emanating from electric guitar-scapes, Moog synthesisers, modular gear, and sporadic embellishments of textured vocals and spoken word. Traces emerges as an emotionally resonant, atmospheric, and otherworldly instrumental eight-track studio album, illuminating the unique collaborative synergy between these two artists.
