ALSO AVAILABLE ON VINYL & CD
elasticstage.com/triplicate/releases/like-failing-clockwork-album

SUNCASTLE T-SHIRTS AVAILABLE
triplicaterecords.com/products/suncastle-like-failing-clockwork-t-shirt
_________________

"Like Failing Clockwork" marks Suncastle's Fifteenth (!!!) album with Triplicate Records since its inception in 2018. It has everything you're looking for in a Suncastle album; warm and cozy beats with lo-fi vintage vibes blend with expertly crafted melodies and thoughtful arrangements. An instant classic!

_________________
INTERVIEW

Michael Southard (Triplicate Records): It's been a minute since “Lightning Strikes a fire & Rain Puts it Out”, what have you been up to lately?

George Ernst (Suncastle): Hanging out in LA and doing very little besides my usual routine of drawing and working on music whenever I'm alone. Or with people. I've been living and breathing art more. Which is financially questionable but spiritually enriching!

Oh, I got married! My wife is usually around while I'm working on these tunes and she actually ended up providing a lot of input as to what did and didn't end up on the album.

MS: Where do you find inspiration these days?

GE: In terms of creating music, it's still coming from the same idiosyncratic internal weirdness in my head, but it's become a lot more collaborative in terms of track selection. I whittled 40-odd tracks down to 14 by asking my friends and family which songs they liked and which songs they didn't.

I'm finding inspiration in what floats other people's boats this time around. I think it's good to have your own uncompromising vision of what you want an album to be, but also, I've approached making my albums that way fourteen times. By the fifteenth it's time for a change.

MS: Tell me a little bit about your process for making “Like Failing Clockwork”

GE: There was no process. I started moving a lot slower, starting with Anthem of Plenty (LP13), and got even more glacial in terms of productivity during Lightning Starts a Fire and Rain Puts it Out (LP14), culminating in this taking two years.

I'd say 'being more methodical,' but that implies some kind of thought and cohesion.

MS: What was the most challenging part of making this album?

GE: Besides finding an overall vibe to tie it together (I think I did but it's vibes-based and intangible), knowing what should stay and what should be cut. As I said before, I had a lot of help from my wife and friends.


MS: What is the most interesting thing you can tell me about clocks?

GE: If you look at them in a dream, they're almost always wrong. If you make a habit of checking clock-faces more so than you usually would, it becomes easier to tell whether you're in a dream if they fail to display any semblance of time-telling in the conventional sense.

That concept is the essence of the title.

Except, it isn't. I made that up just now. It fits though, right?

MS: What's next for Suncastle?

GE: I've got SO many b-sides left over, and half of them are really good, I think. Difficult decisions had to be made in terms of what got cut, but it's easier to do so knowing that they'll see the light of day eventually, probably in the form of a b-sides LP once the dust has had a chance to settle.

I've been in a really good place for the first time in a long while since I started making this record. Hopefully, I can keep that positive momentum going. Famous last words, right?

Anyway, free Palestine.