The personal life of Cameron Stallones — a.k.a. Sun Araw — remains a mystery, despite TMT’s repeated FOIA requests for his daily schedule. But there’s actually a lot that you can glean about his conscious motivations just by listening to the music that he makes (and taking note of where he makes it). Would a guy who traveled to Jamaica to collaborate with legendary reggae outfit The Congos be inclined to geographically stay put while he otherwise makes chill tunes that occasionally ooze tropicalia? There’s a resultant sense that Stallones gets gratitude out of cultural exploration, and seeing as how his homebase in SoCal is nonetheless unambiguously American, it’s no surprise that the musician lately even more inclined to experiment would relish time spent outside of his home country. A series of live releases recorded internationally tell us as much. It looks like most of those Sun Araw “band” and “trio” albums have heretofore been released exclusively via S. Araw’s Bandcamp.
The NNA Tapes label, however, is taking the promotional reigns for Activated Clown, a new release credited to “S. Araw Trio XIII” and scheduled to hit “shelves” January 11. This particular trio consisted of Stallones, bassist Tomo Jacobson, and Jon Leland; and the album reportedly came about improvisationally while the three were hanging out in Brago, Portugal (as you do).
The two lengthy tracks therein are said to respectively represent day and night, while inspiration outside of their surreal Portuguese surroundings reportedly came from “focused viewings of paranormal sci-fi horror films, 80s nine-ball billiards matches, and a steady diet of coffee and veggie alheira sausage.”
Let the sausage be thy compass! Have a listen to a sample from the album below — and pre-order Activated Clown (horrifying cover art and all) right over here. Who else is smiling right now?!
Activated Clown tracklisting:
01. Hermeto Tume
02. Mantis Suite: Invitation to Love
More about: Jon Leland, Sun Araw, Tomo Jacobson
