Evan Shornstein’s fifth solo album is an instrumental homage to the wind
It has been a minute since we’ve featured the instrumental mastermind behind the American ambient artist Photay (aka Evan Shornstein). We first featured Photay in 2016 on one of our weekly Chillwave Wednesday mixes (remember those?). Then he started to appear on our Monthly Mixtapes starting in 2019. Before long, we gave him his long-due spot on the homepage with the launch of his 10-track LP, Onism — an album that talked about the frustration of being stuck in a body that inhabits only one place at a time.
This month Photay is back to announce his fifth solo album: Windswept. As it’s name probably suggest, the album is about wind. The album began with Shornstein designing sounds to, that in his words, “mimic the ‘wind’ as a powerful, deep, unpredictable and at times overwhelming spirit.” The “wind” sound became Windswept’s instrumental through line; a thematic North Star. The natural world had always been one of Shornstein’s key influences, and now it had invaded the machine, and his writing.
Following the album’s first single “Derecho,” Photay has teased the second single on the album: “Air Lock.” The single is accompanied by a music video, directed and animated by Josh Shaffner.
“An ‘Air Lock’ is the threshold between two environments,” explains Shornstein when talking about the latest single. “[It’s] a calm capsule of air protected from a vacuum. On the outside, you may experience turbulence or even a storm. If so, observe the state of things, equalize and proceed with calm awareness. If you feel yourself being pulled upward, stay grounded. If forces pull you endlessly down, float upward. Pass through with ease and you might even influence the chaos.”
Director Josh Shaffner adds: “Photay came to me with some initial ideas along with references for the style of the video. From there, I was able to weave in my own experiments with hand drawn animation pretty seamlessly. Using Wind as a central concept worked out brilliantly for shaping the video as well as the album. Also, when working with such an amazing track it provides you with all sorts of ideas from the start.”
Check out the music video for “Air Lock” here and if you like what you are listening to, you can pre-order the album here.
Photay – Air Lock
