Brovold,Bill / Saft,Jamie Serenity Knolls CD

2017 release. Jamie Saft has been a significant presence on RareNoiseRecords since the label's inception. Now, on Serenity Knolls, he stakes out some completely different territory. An intimate duo project with guitarist Bill Brovold, a former member of such New York no-wave bands as the Rhys Chatham Ensemble, the East Village Orchestra and the Zen Vikings, it features Saft alternating between playing dobro and lap steel on a set of 12 ambient type tunes with a distinctive heartland undercurrent to them. An accomplished keyboardist-composer who has been widely acknowledged for his work with various John Zorn projects, including The Dreamers, Electric Masada and Moonchild, the Queens native and current resident of Kingston in upstate New York has nonetheless has maintained a longstanding relationship with the guitar. As he explains, "I've played guitar since I was a youth as well as bass guitar, so this isn't something new for me at all. In fact, my guitar playing is featured on many of my albums such as Breadcrumb Sins (Tzadik), Sunshine Seas (RareNoise) and Black Shabbis (Tzadik) as well as being prominently featured in my original score for the Oscar nominated film Murderball."

1. Sweet Grass 2. Mitchimakinak 3. Saddle Horn 4. Wendigo 5. Thermopolis 6. The Great American Bison 7. Bemidji 8. No Horse Seen 9. Splintering Wind 10. Greybull 11. Serenity Knolls 12. Silent Midpoint