Haruspex Palace is the solo recording project of Carrboro-via-Bellingham, WA sound engineer and songwriter Casey Proctor. Having released a number of small batch solo recordings, lent her talents to Pacific Northwest mainstays Grails and Holy Sons, and more recently formed the shoegaze parvenu Verity Den, Proctor now unveils an entirely new side of herself with Haruspex Palace’s self-titled debut, an eight-song suite of humble grandiosity and gossamery iridescence. Using an uncanny arrangement of mellotron, op1, acoustic guitar, autoharp, casio beats, electric guitar loops, layered vocals, Proctor deftly explores themes of potent self-reflection, intimate isolation, and inner solace for our collective, unrequited want.
“Distraction” bursts things wide open in a warm, cinematic glow. Proctor’s voice cycling through a glittering and hulled mantra, flanked by dusty electronic warbles and intricate vocal harmonies. The calm and balmy bossa nova groove of “Valley Light Show” is simultaneously psychedelic plastique and space-age fantastique, riding a weightless arc into space. A-side closer “Lens Deliquesce” brings a wordless, Morricone-like march toward the warm embers of a cool sunrise. It’s Faust-ian to its core, vibing with the godfathers of kosmische musik and entertaining a deal with someone’s devil.
B-side opener “Plateau” is quickly passing but nonetheless potent invites a calm vehemence that’s both comforting and unnerving. It mops up the same tears shed by Bronksi Beat’s heartbreak anthem “Smalltown Boy”, but modernized and mutated into something entirely its own. “Homecoming” is an endlessly cyclical earworm of art-pop in a round with each lyric and melodic note chained and overlapping in an elegant, melancholic tapestry. “Spyder” unfurls a rustic, moonlit drive in the back of a pickup truck perhaps, the fog in the air almost as thick as the sullen romance. Its beauty is obscured and hard to make out, but a surly spectacle nonetheless.
All songs composed, performed, produced by Casey Proctor.
Additional mixing by Bill Simpkins on tracks 1, 3, 5, 7.
Additional instrumentation by Emil Amos on tracks 4, 6, 8.
Mastered by Carl Saff.
Designed by Farbod Kokabi.
