New York duo Salt Cathedral share new single ‘Fragments’ and announce debut album
‘Big Waves/Small Waves’
“Evocative… as immediate and cool to the touch as Ellie Goulding.” – Pitchfork
“It’s poppy, it’s ambient, it’s… a momentary feeling of bliss.” – Consequence of Sound
“Strange but lovely.” – The Times
“Ethereal, spacious… like a ghostly being talking to itself.” – VICE
“We dare you not to shake your behind to this in perfect unison” – Metro
Salt Cathedral shares their brand new single, Fragments, and announces their debut album,Big Waves/Small Waves, slated for release this year (date tbc). The record features collaborations with dancehall singer Assasssin (aka Agenst Sasco and most recently known for his feature onKendrick Lamar’s The Blacker The Berry and Kanye West’s Yeezus), dub pioneer and legendLee Scratch Perry and Brooklyn’s own Matisyahu, with whom the duo recently released the infectious single Unraveling.
“As the world crumbles around us, it’s nice to hear acts like Salt Cathedral. The New York-based, Columbian-born duo of Juliana Ronderos and Nicolas Losada have been spending the past few years melding all sorts of kinetic sounds together to create something that’s not too distant from trip-hop yet wholly more expansive. It’s poppy, it’s ambient, it’s … a momentary feeling of bliss.”
The latest single from the enigmatic duo, Fragments lifts off with an edgy and subtle build of drums and synths sparsely arranged around lead vocalist Juli Ronderos’ other-worldly voice – a deceptive ballad which soon explodes into a lively, tangled and intense beat. Talking about the track, Juli said: “Fragments was written in a year that the general public are calling the ‘worst year ever’. War, mass killings, civil unrest, and violent populism are now all-too-common features of life in a global society.”
“Fragments is the effect that conflict takes on us – making us crumble into small pieces as we hope to find balance and strength to reattach. Conflicts big and small, on an everyday personal basis and those of humanity – all they do is break us. What I want to say with this song is that we can“calibrate” our love. It takes an active, rather than a passive attitude to tune into love and tune into empathy and not hurt others around us, to not argue in what I call “the wrong way” which is arguing with hatred and fear. We’ve all seen way too much of this lately. I believe we can calibrate our love.” – Juli
Performing at SXSW and other as-yet-unannounced festivals alongside the highly anticipated debut album release, 2017 is set to be the year of Salt Cathedral. Big Waves/Small Waves follows two widely acclaimed EPs and a handful of singles that have earned the band millions of streams on Spotify. Inspired by all things 2016, their Colombian upbringing, and the predominantly Jamaican neighborhood they live in, the record is brimming with Caribbean rhythms, confrontational vocals and mesmerizing melodies.
Bursting with things to say and music to play, the New York-based duo’s unique and progressive stylings will no doubt see them soar to even greater heights in 2017.
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