2LP version. A new edition of Joshua Abrams’ 2015 2xLP magnum opus Magnetoception is at last here. Out-of-print on vinyl for a decade+, Magnetoception is the 3rd album, & 1st double album, in the saga of Natural Information Society. In a Berwyn, Illinois attic, February 2013, Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly & Jeff Parker, & grand master drummer Hamid Drake gathered around vintage Neumanns & a woodstove to record the nucleus of Magnetoception live to 2-track. Beamed-in over the next year at Abrams' Chicago home studio were Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium, Ben Boye’s electric autoharp, Drake’s conga drum, & solo pieces by Abrams for harp & clarinet. Thanks to Marc Masters championing the album for Pitchfork’s bygone column The Out Door & its appearance in The Wire magazine’s 2015 Rewind, Magnetoception moved the project from the recesses of the underground into realms of greater visibility. From the 2015 Eremite press release:

The artist's first large scale work on vinyl, Magnetoception began as a commission by Eremite for Abrams to make a double LP based in extended performances by an ensemble of Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly & Jeff Parker, & drummer Hamid Drake. Abrams's compositions are a fascinating nexus of ideas from non-western traditional musics, minimalism & jazz designed to catalyze his musicians toward a single group-mind organism of sound. On his 2012 album Represencing Abrams presented his music in capsule-length pieces realized by duo & trio groupings drawn from a pool of a dozen musicians. Magnetoception presents one ensemble methodically unfolding his compositions over longer durations. The performances intricately layer rhythm, melody & drone into sonic textiles of extraordinary expressive breadth, by turns dense or spacious, repetitive or indeterminate, clattering or placid.

Thanks to Joshua, Lisa, Hamid, Emmett, Jeff, Ben, James Bond, Kevin Gray, Fidelity Record Pressing, Darryl Norsen for the sleeve re-mix, Aguirre, the writers who championed Magnetoception.