FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WHO: Miranda Spatula & Nowhere Flower
WHAT: Around & About You (Post Present Medium)
WHEN: All tracks recorded in 2023-4
WHERE: Cambridge, MA and Portland, OR.
HOW: Guitars, keyboards, flutes, violins, tambourines, etc.
WHY: Half long-distance, half in-person collaboration between two underground musicians: Lila Jarzombek who performs as Nowhere Flower and Miranda Soileau-Pratt aka Miranda Spatula of the Spatulas.
R.I.Y.L.: Pip Proud, Alastair Galbraith, Raincoats, Garbage and the Flowers, Enhet for Fri Musik, and Kendra Smith.
Swirling, visceral, delicate. It's just what you need today, to get you out of your worried head and back inside your tired body. Two multi-instrumentalists and close friends slightly and slowly pushing the boundaries of song and not-song, in-tune or who-cares. These are the sounds and images that come to you just before you drift off to sleep.
Some of the improvised elements sound composed, while the songs seem to come together magically at the last minute. It's almost the definition of “not for everyone,” but in no sense is it elitist or obscurantist for its own sake. And just when you think it's a bit too sweet, you get clobbered by a bee swarm of droning riffs.
Hopefully it's the first of many recordings from this duo, who met at an art opening of Lila’s work in Portland in 2022, then Lila joined the Spatulas as lead guitarist for the West Coast version of the band. Both Nowhere Flower and the Spatulas already have busy new years planned.
If the project had a philosophy what might that be?
Lila: Music connects, music heals, music brings people together.
Miranda: First thought, best thought.
What do you love most about each other’s music?
Miranda: Lila has a loose and abstract way of playing any musical instrument that I find totally enchanting. This is a long-distance friend correspondence, where we communicate mostly through music.
Lila: She really knows how to write a song that embeds itself in your brain, while her lyrics are so profound and touching. When Miranda moved out of Portland, it was hard! I was sad and it was pretty shocking to go from hanging out every week, jamming together to all of a sudden nothing!
Please tell us about the song “Under Danger.”
Lila: Miranda wrote that; it was one of the first Spatulas songs I learned. The Spatulas even recorded it for the Beehive Mind album, but it didn’t make it onto the record. This particular version is an iPhone recording of me and Miranda
from when we first started out. That recording is then combined with another phone recording of an improv session of me and Miranda jamming with my 8 year-old, Winona.
Any big plans? Tours?
Lila: No plans at the moment! It’s hard being 3000 miles apart.
If this project were a soup or meal, what might that be?
Miranda: Yoghurt and granola.
