It’s not that often I roll up to someone’s house and first things first they say to me, “Please, dear friend and guest, touch my plants.” Usually, it’s way more likely they take one good look at my grubby paws and say, “Steer clear of the ficus, buster.”
Because my friends are always so rude to me about their plants, I was delighted when synth sorcerer and purveyor of infinite Sunergy Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith announced that she was starting her own multidisciplinary label-type-deal called Touchtheplants. I know it’s not about me…but it feels like it could be about me.
Though Touchtheplants is explicitly founded on the idea of being “open to all ideas and formats” and has the aims of exploring the “infinite possibilities” of any medium you can imagine, pairing physical releases with live performance; the first rumblings are of the plain old musical sort. Two releases are slated for this year: the first is from Aurelia Smith herself, and the second is from electronic music pioneer Gregory Kramer.
Aurelia Smith’s, planned for initial release on March 21 via the Adult Swim Singles series and titled Vol 1: Abstractions, is the first part of her planned annual Electronic Series. Each volume consist of a new musical recording alongisde an episodic comic book about the conversations between a human and a plant. This first volume will also act as the soundtrack to a silent film by Harry Everett Smith, and a vinyl release is planned for later this year.
Though Gregory Kramer was one of the first students in the Cal Arts music class led by the legendary Morton Subotnick who had the opportunity to work with the Buchla 100 and 200 series synthesizers, he’s never released his own music. His release for Touchtheplants will be entitled Electronic Meditations, and it will layer a series of guided meditations over the vintage synth sounds that kids crave. Expect that release this fall.
In addition to all this plant touchery, Aurelia Smith also plans to inaugurate Touchtheplants with two sets of shows in New York and LA. These shows will feature a full performance of both Abstractions set to Everett Smith’s film and of her 2017 release The Kid. Reach out and touch plants. Hi five.
Dates:
05.21-22.2018 - New York, NY - National Sawdust
05.24-25.2018 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Forever