Mary Lattimore - Collected Pieces '2017

Tracks list

Last year, Mary Lattimore’s At The Dam marked a watershed moment for the
classically trained harpist. While over the past decade she had recorded and
performed with notable talents like Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten, Steve Gunn,
Jarvis Cocker, Meg Baird, and Thurston Moore, Mary’s acclaimed third solo
full-length (her first long-player for Ghostly International) saw her own music
deservedly embraced by a wider audience. It was certainly no small feat coming
from a beguiling album of improvised, processed harp pieces that had been
recorded during stops along a road trip across America – all funded by an
esteemed fellowship that she received from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. 

Out April 14 on cassette and digital, Collected Pieces is a gorgeous counterpart
to At The Dam, featuring six tracks previously available only as a download
and/or streaming off Mary’s Bandcamp and SoundCloud pages. Recorded at
her old home in Philadelphia between 2011 and 2016 and mixed by longtime
collaborator Jeff Zeigler, Mary is reflective when describing this album-length
compilation. “It’s me opening a box filled with 12 years worth of
memories made while living there, with lots of beauty and sorrow, as well as
total sunshine, blurriness, and some darkness all housed within.” 

Throughout Collected Pieces, she conjures a mesmerizing range of colors and
emotions from her 47-string Lyon & Healy harp along with subtle augmentations of
effects and processed electronics. Dedicated to Mary’s favorite beach
town, Ship Bottom, NJ, 10-and-a-half-minute opener “Wawa By The
Ocean” gently unfolds like a daydream, with the song’s delicate
refrain slowly dissolving into a light wash of delayed plucks and sun-kissed
countermelodies. “We Just Found Out She Died,” however, takes a more
celestial turn as her airy vocal harmonies shimmer underneath the meditative
flutter of her harp. (The chimeric atmosphere is befitting of the song’s
inspiration: Twin Peaks actress Margaret Lanterman, a/k/a the Log Lady, who
sadly passed away shortly after Mary had seen her speak at a library in
Philadelphia.) From the sweet yearn of “The Warm Shoulder” to the
flickering drift of “Your Glossy Camry,” Mary’s music is all
at once intimate and inviting as she effortlessly balances her exquisite sense
of melodicism with an inventive ear for experimentation. 

“It’s only in looking back that you realize how impermanent stuff
always was, even though 12 years felt really long,” Mary explains.
“The songs here have always been really special to me, and more so after
bringing together these scraps and odes to memories of a burning motel, people
from high school who are old now, or that Wawa convenience store on the Jersey
shoreline which will probably always be there but is now so far away.” 

A new transplant from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, Mary hasn’t had much
time to settle into her new hometown. Following a recent tour with Waxahatchee
and Kevin Morby, the coming months ahead will find her on the road again with
Real Estate, playing synth in the New Rain Duets with Mac McCaughan, taking on a
two-month residency at the Headlands in Sausalito, CA (May through July), and
recording a duo record with Meg Baird for Three Lobed Recordings.

Tracks:
01. Mary Lattimore - Wawa by the Ocean (10:29)
02. Mary Lattimore - Bold Rides (13:46)
03. Mary Lattimore - We Just Found Out She Died (4:29)
04. Mary Lattimore - It Was Late and We Watched the Motel Burn (13:32)
05. Mary Lattimore - The Warm Shoulder (4:56)
06. Mary Lattimore - Your Glossy Camry (7:06)

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