New York-based songwriter and composer Ben Seretan has a new video for “Rain and Cicadas” off his upcoming Cicada Waves album due for release on April 30th via NNA Tapes. The album was recorded on an antique Steinway piano during a two-week residency at the base of the Appalachian mountains. The composer sought to record pristine and minimal piano tracks full of serene ambiance, but he quickly realized that his quiet retreat in the woods was actually a wild noise-filled environment.
Seretan’s decision to allow his environment’s noise into the recordings means that on a track like “Rain and Cicadas,” his reflective and improvised piano playing is accompanied by an indeterminate but rhythmic rustling that only adds to the quiet mystery of the track.
Bahareh Khoshooee directed the animated video for the song, and he created it using the reality simulation game The Sims. Discussing his stream of consciousness visuals, he explains that they are “a nod to Seretan’s videos and images that were made during his residency. This work explores the sensation of retrieving a memory, an intrusive thought, a deja vu, or perhaps a dream.”
