Clear or black vinyl LP in poly-lined inner sleeve inside gorgeous, full-color, reverse-board jacket with flooded black interior featuring mysterious photography by Adam Pacione. Mastered for vinyl by Stephan Mathieu and cut by Andreas Lubich (Loop-o).
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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
"While prolific, Colin Andrew Sheffield's work never seems to overlap, meaning that each release has its distinct sound and feel, so he never feels as if he is repeating himself. Considering he utilizes similar compositional methods from work to work; this is clearly a testament to his compositional strengths and attention to detail. Fitting its title, 'Serenade' is his most musical work to date, but nowhere is his penchant for abstract textures and tones ignored."
— Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed
"...[T]he parts Sheffield uses are so small and so thoroughly processed that all that’s left are texture and feeling. That latter element is what makes 'Serenade' alluring; every sound has emotion baked in."
— Bill Meyer, Magnet Magazine
"Strings swell up from the bottom of a dark pool of water, drones vibrate like the hull of a doomed cargo plane, the ghosts of ghosts walk in circles across sheet-metal… he conjures these scenes and more like them here."
— Matt Korvette, Yellow Green Red
“Working with twelve pieces, Colin Andrew Sheffield has spun an aurally silky dodecahedron. Elegantly harmonious, each sonic anchor disappearing from the soul-stirring center they support.”
— Ken Lower, Lost in a Sea of Sound
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The twelve jagged audio collages found on Colin Andrew Sheffield's "Serenade" shift from blurry abstractions to choppy sound art to mournful plundered passages, always with the singular stylistic approach the composer has developed over the last 25+ years of activity.
As the follow-up to his previous full-length release, the critically acclaimed "Images" (2023), "Serenade" picks up where that album left off, although with an expanded sonic palette of funk, soul, jazz, and library records as his primary sources. Of course, the finished work bears little resemblance to the original components as Sheffield opts to draw out the mystery and minutiae from his building blocks rather than simply rearrange the chosen snippets. In these dense new compositions, hidden details come into relief as loops develop and morph while elusive melodies emerge from the mist before vanishing into thin air.
From the beginning stages in which samples were gathered, until the final product was at last completed, Sheffield spent around eighteen months stitching together the tracks for "Serenade". Rather than sounding labored or stale, however, much of the record has a kind of ramshackle quality about it, with a DIY aesthetic at its heart. The characteristic looseness of these pieces could be attributed to Sheffield's use of vintage sampling hardware, but the presence of imperfect loops and rough textures was both a conscious decision and an inevitable part of his distinctive creative process.
Ultimately "Serenade" is a collection of miniatures exploring Sheffield's interest in bending found sounds to his will, in creating a certain ambiance of open-ended intrigue, and thereby describing a hazy landscape — one perhaps flecked with distant clouds and obscure lights in the sky: a paean for the inexplicable.
credits
released July 11, 2025
Recorded at home in Austin, July 2023 - December 2024
All sounds derived from various commercially available sources
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Lacquer cut by Andreas Lubich
Photography by Adam Pacione
Layout by Colin Sheffield
Colin Andrew Sheffield (b. 1976, El Paso TX) is the founder of the Elevator Bath label. He has released a number of solo recordings on labels such as Auf Abwegen, Sublime Retreat, Glistening Examples, Invisible Birds, and more.
