Catskill’s Camp Saint Helene have shared their track Memory Knows as well as the music video video. The song is lifted from their upcoming new album, ‘Of Earth and its Timely Delights,’ out May 10th. For Camp Saint Helene, the concept of otherworldliness is neither strange nor complex, but alluring and holy. Created by Elizabeth Celeste Ibarra, Dylan Nowik, Wesley Harper and Alex Wernquest, they approach their craft akin to a ritual, leaning into the notion that art and expression are sacred experiences on an overstimulated planet. Often informed by the spirit of a defunct Christian-summer camp turned arts-colony deep within the mountains of New York, their music searches for shimmers of hope amidst hints of doom.
‘Of Earth and its Timely Delights’ measures the distance between grief and possibility. It is a meditation on earth-time in relation to the cosmic, the lyrics a commentary on big-picture themes such as personal and collective revolution, dystopias, greed, love and human connection. With an urgency that is both thoughtful and experimental, the sound of Camp Saint Helene is a collaborative endeavor; a sonic enmeshing of each member’s individual character.
The band have released the melancholic beauty of a song, Memory Knows. On its inspiration, Elizabeth explains to Northern Transmissions: “This was directed by Angela Ricciardi and it’s a journey through the landscape of the mind during the process of letting go. We used the medium of film intentionally to represent impermanence, as eventually the physical medium will degrade over time. The song is one of the first written and recorded on the new album and centers around deep grief amidst a constantly changing world. It’s about losing someone you love, nostalgia for the past and feelings of vast and static loneliness.” Watch the video for Memory Knows via YouTube below or listen here.
‘Of Earth and its Timely Delights’ is a journey with no destination; a constant rediscovery of self, amidst shifting fields of perception.
Farfisa Song of their debut record ‘Mother’ (2019), was named KEXP’s Song of the Day and added to KEXP Music that Matters Vol. 683 by Cheryl Waters. She describes Camp Saint Helene as “..call[ing] to mind the ’60s California folk scene with their gentle, waltz-like pastoral sound”.
Additionally, Farfisa Song was featured predominantly both in Amazon Prime’s teen horror drama, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2022) and Zoe Lister-Jones’ series SLIP on The Roku Channel (2023). Mother was named by Bandcamp as a New and Notable record of 2019, describing it as “Occult-folk in the 70’s U.K. tradition that further affirms the link between Appalachian and British folk songs”.
In 2023, they were commissioned by NADA x Foreland to present a live performance and installation piece titled “Into the Garden” for Upstate Art Weekend in Catskill, NY.
Both ‘Mother’ & ‘Of Earth and its Timely Delights’ were recorded to 16-track, 1⁄2” tape, at Basement Floods Records in Catskill, New York.
Tour dates
May 2 – Northampton, MA @ 90 King Street
May 3 – Burlington, VT @ Radio Bean
May 4 – Portland, ME @ The Apohadian
May 5 – Boston, MA @ Exit Galleries
May 8 – Providence, RI @ AS220
May 9 – New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
May 10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (Album Release Show)
May 11 – Philadelphia, PA @ Harmonie Hall
May 16 – Woodstock, NY @ Colony (Album Release Show)
C'mon why don't you leave a comment here