Photay announces new album and shares the “slightly out of my control” ‘Derecho’

Hear the first taster of album number five right now

Photay has announced his fifth solo album Windswept, set for release on the Mexican Summer label on September 20.

The Hudson Valley-raised, Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist composer – real name Evan Shornstein – has shared the first track from the album, ‘Derecho’, and told us about its inspiration.

“Writing ’Derecho’ was a visceral process that helped me feel the presence of elements beyond our control.,” he told Juno Daily. “The piece features a synth patch I programmed … which felt slightly out of my control … like the wind. I found myself frequently  coming back to this sound and eventually building the entire record from it.”

The track is named after a highly violent windstorm that accompanies thunderstorms (you may have read about the one that took place in Houston in mid-May 2024).

Windswept, as its title might suggest, is an album about wind. The project began with the producer designing a synth patch to, in his words, “mimic the ‘wind’ as a powerful, deep, unpredictable and at times overwhelming spirit.” So use of that “wind” patch became Windswept’s instrumental throughline, and the element became the album’s ‘thematic maypole’.

The album is primarily reliant on electronic textures, but there are friends adding instrumental touches – Randall Fisher and Will Epstein on reeds and winds, Niño on percussion, guitarist Nate Mercereau, while Portuguese folk artist Mariana Bragada plays the ocarina, a type of ceramic flute, on the deep-space funky ‘Low Pressure System’.

Pre-order your vinyl copy of Windswept, out on September 20, by clicking here