I want to leave this Earth behind

I want to leave this Earth behind was released by Toronto-based label Halocline Trance (Casey MQ, myst milano, ACT!).

The album was written, recorded, and produced by Stefana Fratila, who also worked with mixing engineer Jeremy Greenspan (Jessy Lanza, Caribou, Junior Boys), mixing engineer Lisa Conway, and mastering engineer Sage Kim.

A limited edition cassette was released by LA-based label Not Not Fun.

BUY/STREAM

Other Creative Personnel:

The double LP’s cover art is by Diana Lynn VanderMeulen with graphic design by Haley Parker.

Three music videos were created (“Earth”, “Venus“, and “Jupiter”) by multidisciplinary visual artist Diana Lynn VanderMeulen, artist and software programmer Xuan Ye, and analog video artist Peter Rahul.

The album is conceptual, in that it centres on outer space exploration and my understanding of 'Crip futurity'. My vision is for the album to engage listeners in an exercise of imagining the sounds of interplanetary atmospheres– conditions which are inherently unlivable, unbreathable, converting all human body-minds into disabled-bodied-ness. Since I identify as Crip, or disabled, this idea deeply resonates with me. I am the first artist (a disabled producer/musician, no less) to have worked with NASA researchers on a sonic imagining of the solar system’s atmospheres that incorporates real scientific data. If we are all 'disabled' in (or by) outer space, my music is concerned with propelling all listeners into space, leaving Earth behind them, through my music.”

During a 2019 residency at CMMAS (Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras) in Morelia, Mexico, Fratila began writing the album on an octophonic sound system.

Afterwards, from her home studio in Toronto, she recorded additional synthesizer parts, finalized arrangements, and incorporated Sononaut (her 8 solar system VST plug-ins) into the album’s production.

"I want to leave this Earth behind" was released April 21st 2023 on Halocline Trance (HTRA034) and Not Not Fun (NNF 406). The VSTs are available to download here.

Weather Loops

Weather Loops is the album without the music— a delayering that leaves the listener with only the weather patterns from each planet.

The loops have been released as Sides C + D of the vinyl release, and also make up the ‘weather’ fader of the Sononaut plug-ins.