Over the years, the composer David Moore has led the malleable classical group Bing & Ruth through all kinds of different explorations. Most recently, that resulted in 2017’s No Home Of The Mind. Now, Moore’s about to return with a new collection. Titled Species, it’s an album that delves into a variety of trance-like states, influenced by Moore spending time in the desert and his newfound love of long-distance running.
Part of the album’s genesis came from time Moore spent away from his home in New York, in California’s Point Dume. “I’d found myself in places unfamiliar enough that I could easily lose all sense of direction, size, and, more than anything, all sense of time,” Moore explained in a statement. “The music I was making became a kind of reflection of these intentional detachments — and a place to mirror that feeling of trance that had pushed them out in the first place.”
Though its music has abstract, spiritual concerns, Species also found Bing & Ruth limiting the structures of their work. The album is dominated by the Farfisa organ, with accompaniment by clarinet and double bass played by founding members Jeremy Viner and Jeff Ratner. Trance experiences, and “submitting to the wave” of them, was very much on Moore’s mind. “I suppose what I was moving towards was a way to feel small — a way to feel deeply humble,” he said. “I had always made music in search of some sort of inner peace, but I no longer cared so much to comfort myself. I’d grown tired, it seemed, of looking inward. I wanted to look nowhere.”
Along with the announcement, Bing & Ruth have shared “I Had No Dream.” As a first glimpse of Species, it delivers on all the promises of the album’s thematic aims. It’s a spacious, meditative drone, dotted by melodies that flicker like mirages in the deserts that birthed this music. Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Body In A Room”
02 “Badwater Psalm”
03 “I Had No Dream”
04 “Blood Harmony”
05 “Live Forever”
06 “The Pressure Of This Water”
07 “Nearer”
TOUR DATES:
08/12 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
08/14 – Raleigh, NC @ Kings Barcade
08/15 – Atlanta, GA @ Contemporary Art Center
08/17 – Austin, TX @ North Door
08/19 – Dallas, TX @ Sons of Hermann Hall
08/20 – Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress
08/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
08/23 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
08/25 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
08/26 – Seattle, WA @ Fremont Abbey
08/29 – Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center
08/30 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation
08/31 – Detroit, MI @ Marble Bar
09/01 – Toronto, ON @ Brothers Dressler
09/02 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
09/03 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott
09/04 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
12/04 – Lisboa, PT @ ZDB
12/05 – Guimaraes, PT @ CCVF
12/07 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
12/08 – Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg
12/09 – Paris, FR @ Les Trois Baudets
12/10 – London, UK @ Kings Place
12/11 – Manchester, UK @ St Michael’s
Species is out 7/17 via 4AD. Pre-order it here.
