Building on the ground of his critically acclaimed 2023 release, ‘Images’, Colin Andrew Sheffield returns with ‘Serenade’, comprising twelve jagged audio collages drawing from a radically expanded palette of sound sources, that entirely defies the expectations connected to musique concrete and Plunderphonics. A stunning, seamless body of electroacoustic soundscapes at the juncture of ambience and abstract imagism, encountering Sheffield endlessly pushing into unknown realms, ‘Serenade’ redefines the possibilities of DIY experimentalism in the most inspiring of ways.

Founded in 1998, for roughly two and half decades the Austin, Texas, based imprint, Elevator Bath, has plumbed the American musical underground, releasing noteworthy releases by figures like Adam Pacione, Rick Reed, Bob Bellerue, Tom Recchion, Matt Shoemaker, as well as occasionally stretching further afield with albums by Masami Akita, Susana López, Merzbow, and Francisco López. If any can, it could be regarded as a maverick pursuit, led by the heart and ears, rather than any prevailing taste or trend. Running like a spine within the output of Elevator Bath, is the work of Colin Andrew Sheffield, the artist who founded the label all those years ago. Conceived as a follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2023 release, ‘Images’, his latest, ‘Serenade’, stands among his most striking efforts to date.

Colin Andrew Sheffield first appeared on the American scene during the late 1990s, while still in his early 20s. It was during this period that he launched Elevator Bath as a vehicle for the work of like-minded artists, as well as his own. Over the last two and half decades, he has released roughly a dozen and a half solo gestures that have pushed the boundaries of electronic, ambient, and electroacoustic sound, on imprints like Invisible Birds, Sinneslöschen, and Glistening Examples, as well as nearly as many albums in a longstanding duo with James Eck Rippie. Primarily working with audio collage / his own distinct take of musique concrete, Sheffield deploys the act of sampling to draw hidden melodies and textures from his source material, layering fragments into harmony and disharmony to evoke an impressionistic conception of the future from the detritus of the past.

Sheffield’s latest, ‘Serenade’, builds broadly on the practice that the artist has been slowly refining over three decades, and more specifically over the album’s predecessor, the critically acclaimed 2023 LP ‘Images’. Where ‘Images’ drew its sound sources exclusively from jazz recordings, with ‘Serenade’ Sheffield has radically expanded his palette to include plundered recordings of funk, soul, jazz, and library records as his primary sources. Comprising twelve jagged audio collages that were meticulously constructed over the course of eighteen months, while unquestionably linked to numerous of Sheffield’s previous efforts through its gauzy abstract temperaments, ‘Serenade’ incorporates a heightened sense of density and subtly more jagged and chopped sound.

Resting at a razors edge between ambient electroacoustic music and musique concrete, entirely transforming Sheffield’s source material well beyond the point of recognizability into nine mournful pieces marked by a singular stylistic approach that infuses each with mystery and draws out microscopic detail and hidden meanings within each morphing and evolving moment, despite the rigor at the heart of the entirety of ‘Serenade’ the artist manages to maintain a striking sense of openness, alongside the immediacy of the DIY ethos from which his work has drawn. Utilizing imperfect loops and rough textures enabled by his vintage sampling hardware, across the album’s length Sheffield weaves a series of otherworldly soundscapes, drenched in sprawling ambiences, rustling textures, haunting tones and resonances, and elusive melodies that emerge from sonic mists before drifting, once again, from view.

Entirely standing far apart from the pack, ‘Serenade’ stands among Colin Andrew Sheffield’s most engrossing releases to date in his already remarkable and long career: a collection of miniatures of striking gravity and scope, gathered by a deft artistic hand into a cohesive sonic landscape of intrigue, detail, and depth. Following the recent release of Susana López's absolutely stellar ‘Materia Vibrante’, Elevator Bath is on a serious roll.