Film composer/singer-songwriter Peter Salett, a “downtown folk legend” (Time Out NY) who has opened for the likes of The Swell Season and They Might Be Giants, performs this wistful song cycle backed by a full band and accompanied by artist Michael Arthur’s evocative, improvised ink illustrations, which unfurl alongside the music.
Having put together a lot of set lists and recorded many albums of individual songs, I've recently become interested in creating a more long-form listening experience. Suite for the Summer Rain and Dance of the Yellow Leaf are my new pieces, intended to take people to a place outside their daily concerns in a way that a series of individual songs might not. The combined works are 70 minutes of a meditative song cycle performed with guitar, voice, string quartet, bass and drums, as well as immersive sounds from the natural world. Michael's drawings help to further ground the experience in dreams.
--Peter Salett
I'm interested in telling a story visually as an accompaniment to musical ideas. I take as my inspiration the newspaper cartoonists of the vaudeville era, who performed "chalk-talks"--live drawing events, but I come at the idea as an improv-performer, reacting in real time, with drawings that are a reflection of the music. Some musicians play guitar, bass, drums, strings--whatever. I'm aiming to sit in with the band on pen and ink, all in service to the song.
--Michael Arthur
