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Mary Lattimore Shares Title Track From New Album ‘Silver Ladders’- Due October 9th via Ghostly International

September 17, 2020
Photo credit: Rachael Pony Cassells

Mary Lattimore Shares Title Track From New Album ‘Silver Ladders’- Due October 9th via Ghostly International

Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore has shared the title track from new album Silver Ladders’, due for release on October 9th via Ghostly International.

Recorded over nine days with Slowdive’s Neil Halstead at his studio stationed on an old airfield in Cornwall, Silver Ladders’ finds Lattimore exercising command and restraint. Her signature style is refined, the sprawling layers of harp reigned in and accented by flourishes of low-end synth and Halstead’s guitar. The music can feel ominous but not by compromising vivid wonder, like oceanic overtones that shift with the tides. 

Following singles Sometimes He’s In My Dreams” and “Pine Trees,” now Lattimore shares the album’s title track, “Silver Ladders” commenting: “Silver Ladders was written about this place in Croatia on the island of Hvar, where the sea was deep greeny-blue and you could float with all of the people from the town. There were all of these ladders from the stone path right into the water. I thought it was the most beautiful place on Earth, as a person who loves to swim. I was hired to play a wedding in Big Sur, another breathtaking spot, and the rugged coast reminded me of my time in Croatia, so this melody came to me as I was warming up for the wedding. I recorded it on my phone and that’s where the song came from.

This was one we tried to recreate it in the studio, but the demo sounded better and purer. The ending was smudgy and watercolory already but I tried to describe to Neil what I wanted from it, even more strange and suspended in the air, and he pulled some wizardry and made it sound just how I’d imagined it. The demos I made with the idea that he was the one to fulfill what the song was asking for with techniques I didn’t know how to manifest but could kind of amorphously describe. He really “got it” and that’s why we were a good team, along with his beautiful new ideas (especially adding all the bass synth) that really worked with the vibe.”

Silver Ladders starts with a few spaced out ominous plucks setting the scene for the ethereal soundscape about to consume you for 3 minutes 45 seconds. As darker chimes infuse with the harrowing arrangement this aids in providing a more full-bodied and intense atmosphere before Mary Lattimore adds a vast array of signature twinkling and intricate rhythms and textures into the compelling composition. Those rhythms harness all the power and emotion.

Another stunning orchestration from an artist who provides such striking sounds. Enriching harmonies and vast elements allure the audience but the tentative tones connect to your emotions and leave you in awe.

Inspired by Cornish tales that Halstead shared with Lattimore, alongside collected fragments of conversations and ideas and her own travels, these songs are clearly tales, and yet Silver Ladders’ is open to interpretation. Her memories — “the Cornish landscape, the hotel from the movie The Witches, the cream tea, winning the pub quiz, the Sunday Roast, the ghosts of all of the surfers who had died in the wild waves, the night walks to the top of the hill to see the moon shining on the water…” — shine through these works without defining them. In a way, much like the sea, or the sky, they belong to everyone. Such is the beauty of her craft, which stands here in unprecedented company and clarity, the confidence of an artist in full.
 
‘Silver Ladders’ is out on October 9thvia Ghostly international and is available to pre-order here: https://ghostly.ffm.to/mary-lattimore-silver-ladders
 
‘Silver Ladders’ track list:
1. Pine Trees
2. Silver Ladders
3. Til a Mermaid Drags You Under
4. Sometimes He’s In My Dreams
5. Chop on the Clumbout
6. Don’t Look
7. Thirty Tulips
 


https://ghostly.ffm.to/mary-lattimore-silver-ladders
https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com

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