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Aug 16, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Kyle Lehman

This year, indie singer/songwriter and Bon Iver sideman S. Carey and jazz trumpeter John Raymond are teaming up for a collaborative album, Shadowlands, due out on September 15th. The pair first met as students at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. While Carey was playing with Justin Veron and building up a solo career, Raymond was equally prolific in a different stylistic lane. The duo have shared the album’s lead single, “Calling,” followed by their second track, “Steadfast (feat. Gordi).” Today, they’re back with another new track, “Transient,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Transient” is the most spacious and ambient of the three tracks shown thus far from the album, beginning on a spectral piano line colored by some deft brushes of percussion. As the song winds onward, Raymond’s trumpet steps into center stage, entering into a dreamy dance of melody with the keys. Even as the bass adds its weight to the mix and the drums grow more present, the track stays circumscribed within this quiet, wordless mode. Together, the pair finds poignant beauty within the track’s negative space, steeping the track in an understated, unvoiced yearning.

Raymond says of the track, “In the months leading up to the initial round of recording we did for the album, I started developing an idea for a melody and chord progression that had a really strong feeling to me but no clear direction. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t find the song inside of it. Then, one morning during the sessions, I came to the studio a bit early by myself. I sat down at the piano, started playing the idea, and within thirty minutes the entire song unveiled itself. It was magical.

As I played it for the first time, I remember feeling like each phrase had this fleeting, transient quality to it. The song feels like it’s here for a moment and then just vanishes. The more we played it, the more I felt like it was symbolic of the inspiration that all the songs on the record came from.

This video was recorded at the Masonic Temple in Eau Claire, WI and it includes Aaron Parks on piano, Jeremy Boettcher on bass, and Ben Lester on synth and pedal steel.”

Check out the song and video below. Shadowlands is out September 15th via Libuelle Editions. You can also check out Carey and Raymond’s tour dates below.

Tour Dates:

9/29 - Minneapolis, MN: Cedar Cultural Center
9/30 - Iowa City, IA: The James
10/1 - Eau Claire, WI: Masonic Temple
10/3 - Milwaukee, WI: The Cooperage
10/4 - Evanston, IL: Space
10/5 - Ann Arbor, MI: The Ark
10/6 - Bloomington, IN: FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
10/26 - Newport News, VA: Ferguson Hall
10/29 - Brooklyn, NY: National Sawdust
10/30 - Philadelphia, PA: MilkBoy Philly
10/31 - Northampton, MA: Parlor Room
11/1 - Boston, MA: The Red Room
11/2 - Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire
11/3 - New Haven, CT: Firehouse 12