City (aka Will Ballantyne) & i.o (aka Maxwell Patterson) released album Spirit Volume via New York’s PTP Recordings on June 7, with a music video for track ‘Anxiety Object’ premiering on AQNB today. The two musicians produced the record long-distance over several years between their respective bases of Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia. It joins together Ballantyne’s production ear for ambient and guitar distortion with Patterson’s complex percussion, along with a contribution by another Vancouver-based producer, x/o, on one of the tracks.
The record is a surprisingly contemplative piece of work that floats through ebbing waves of ambient and drone that are accentuated by careful and complementary rhythms and titles like ‘Faith’, ‘Churchlight’ and ‘Forever an Image’. The video created and directed by Patterson includes the drummer’s ink drawings that are animated, overlaid and shattered by investigative POV footage and floating text. The images tear across the screen in a similarly chaotic manner, before sinking into the calm stillness of fading atmospherics.**
City & i.o’s Spirit Volume album was released via New York’s PTP Recordings on June 7, 2019.