KIND STRANGER Everything Becomes More Interesting

Golden Ratio Frequencies are ecstatic to announce our ninth physical release for the label, EVERYTHING BECOMES MORE INTERESTING, the debut album from New York City’s KIND STRANGER.

KIND STRANGER is the moniker of NY-based Drew Joy, a lifelong sound-tinker, currently practicing the kind arts of synthesis and fatherhood in Queens, New York.

With Everything Becomes More Interesting, Joy gifts us a selection of organic, meditative beginner’s-mind experiments for synthesizer.

Taking us on a journey through the Euphoric (Tumble), the Contemplative (Great Neck), the Brooding (Mum), and the Strange (Bonefields), Everything Becomes More Interesting sits at the intersection of playful exploration, intuitive inquiry, and methodical process.

Says Joy:

“This record is a meditative trip through nine droneworlds, suggesting surrender (air, descent), death and persistence (bone, levitation), memory (distortion, emotion), love (heat, trust), anxiety (fog, spider) ritual (cauldron, laughter) protection (giant bird), psychedelia, and departure/return (mirage, spaceship). You are not alone—each world contains at least one kind stranger, who can act as guide and protector.

Shades of Ciani, Aurelia Smith, Coil and Vangelis are scattered throughout these nine textural workouts, which, in a medium close to saturation, retain an identity and colour that singles them out for attention and makes them their own.

With Drew often found leading beginners workshops on synthesis and recording, self-releasing disco remixes and oddities (as FAKE MONEY), uploading experimental modular explorations to his online platforms, and finding his way as a new dad, there is an overall essence of giving and service from this KIND STRANGER, which oozes from these alms of sound. We at GRFRQ are more than willing to accept these offerings of sonic kindness.

The album was performed on DSI Evolver and Eurorack modular system. Recorded on digital 2-track at Joy’s home studio in Queens, the material is presented with minimal edits and has been mastered with love by Steve Silverstein.

Physical copies are realised on professionally dubbed C60 cassette with on body print, full two page colour inlay and Golden Spiral Acetate.

Releases Sept 2019