Ben Seretan – “The Windmill Sings” (Premiere)

A whirring, 16-minute drone, “The Windmill Sings” is a bonus track from the new, self-titled album from New York-based guitarist and songwriter Ben Seretan. It was recorded while Seretan was in residence at Flux Factory, a communal arts space in Queens where he lived and rehearsed in early 2014.

“There’s this very sunny back porch on the second floor, right off the kitchen, and I got into the habit of setting up my stuff there — letting the wind and the birds and the sound of the N train permeate themselves into whatever I was working on,” Seretan says. “On a particularly sunny day, with a really good cup of coffee going, I sampled my own voice into a sampling keyboard and began improvising. I recorded one of these improvisations on a super cheap cassette tape recorder and was pretty amazed later to find the swirling pool of humanity you hear now. Something about re-sampling my voice and the tape and the outdoors setting made it really nice.”

According to Seretan, alternate titles for the piece include “The Dog at the Wedding” and “A Good Thing Happened at the Airport”.

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