Spring Theory alumni Sage Caswell returns to the San Francisco-based label to deliver his debut album Hoop Earring. It's an enigmatic record that comes from the producer's own movement through personal transformation. It follows 2015’s 'Sleep Quarters', Caswell's introspective label debut, and offers 10 tracks spread out across two 12"s. Hoop Earring is heavily informed by surrealist visions and archetypal images from Caswell’s past that have crystallised within the context of this longplay album. Hoop Earring successfully paints images with broad brushstrokes and allegorical song titles that allows one to fill in fine details of a landscape built within the framework ten songs. “Ray Of Light 95’” alludes to a moment in time that smartly places you alongside an adolescent Caswell while songs like “Here We Guard Upon The Soul” land locks squarely in the middle with a poignant, nail-on-the-head statement. "Zora Scales (Step 1)" provides a focal reference to the fantasy world that this album might be the soundtrack to. 

In Sage’s words:

I suppose the ultimate crux is that I came to terms with growing past and through a place of comfort. Hoop Earring is a fantasy, one about spiritual enlightenment and realisation. I think about Hoop Earring as a filter with which to look through - Hoop Earring is an island. A lot changed from when I initially started writing these songs and it all feels like it happened while I was in a faraway place. Hoop Earring is like ​The Younger Dryas of my ​emotional ​life. In Janet Murray's, "Hamlet on the Holodeck", she explains that fiction is a way to deal with everyday problems by making us be involved enough to care but detached enough to be able to retreat if the suffering is too much. I relate this to Hoop Earring in that it became somewhat of a coping mechanism. I don't have much else to say, other than that I'm proud of the album and that I'm happy to share it.

Thanks y’all,

Sage

Tracklist
01. Ray of Light 95'
02. Introduction to WS
03. Danny's Telephone Voice
04. Y’all
05. All of Gardens
06. Here We Guard Upon The Soul
07. 31514726 (Step2)
08. Joy Tel
09. DYC
10. Zora Scales (Step1)