Ambient pop project Ruah announces their first release with Strange Mono: Smothered and Covered. The brainchild of Benjamin Schurr (BLIGHT. Records, Luna Honey, Nyxy Nyx, Tadzio), Ruah marries dizzying swashes of visceral noise with pulsing rhythms, creaky organic instruments, found sounds, and earnest yet absurdist lyrics.
“My aim has always been to merge conflicting sounds, abrasive and beautiful and to see what occurs,” says Schurr. “Whether it’s been done before is pretty much irrelevant to me; I want to constantly be exploring music and to chase that feeling of wonderment as if I am discovering fire for the first time.”
Watch the video for the album’s single ‘I Believe In You” below:
Smothered and Covered is a new songwriting approach for Ruah. “I want this album to be a palate cleanser and lead people from one world into the next,” he says.
The album is broken into two sides, Smothered – based around more acoustic sounds – and Covered, a more solitary affair which is almost exclusively electronic and focuses on the more post-industrial landscapes the project embodies.
“I see covers as an opportunity to have a dialogue with the music that has inspired and driven me forward in my life, often these songs haunt me and live rent free in my subconscious. Through covering them I offer my way of hearing to them. Covering a song is a way of keeping the channels open, to practice empathy and reminding yourself there are different ways of seeing the world. When I feel too stuck in my ways, they remind me I am a small particle in a sea of voices and perspectives.”
Listen to the album below:
Proceeds from this album are being donated to Planned Parenthood in an effort to support bodily autonomy and access to safe health care procedures.
Track List
1. Dead Friends
2. I Believed In You
3. Ache
4. Starless
5. Feeding Demons
6. In A Lonely Place (New Order Cover)
7. Demons Sing Love Songs (Unwound Cover)
8. Isolation (Joy Division Cover)
9. I Started a Joke (The Beegees Cover) 03:56
10. Name (Midwife Remix)
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