Last year, Michael Cantor’s project the Goodbye Party released a new album, Beautiful Motors, his first full-length since 2014. It was filled with some catchy and well-crafted rock songs, but he’s following that up today with a new release called Stray Sparks, which is more muted and plaintive, a 20-minute collection of song sketches and loose ideas and ambient bits that is still pretty potent.
“I assembled the tape over a two-week period this summer. Without any plan, I started recording and blending voice memos from the past year into new songs and sounds,” Cantor said in a statement. “Many of these songs were written in workshops led by [Big Thief]’s Buck Meek and [Lomelda]’s Hannah Read, including ‘Plain Sight,’ ‘Magnolia,’ and ‘Sparrow.’ I just wanted to make something new, quickly, for myself, with no expectation of what it would become.”
Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Wave Field”
02 “Spirit”
03 “Plain Sight”
04 “Graphite”
05 “Sparrow”
06 “Stray”
07 “Blue Mirror”
08 “Prayer”
09 “Honey”
10 “Magnolia”
11 “MFL Gospel Singers”
A limited-edition Stray Sparks cassette is out 11/12 via Double Double Whammy.