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The new album available January 20, 2009 on Tarnished Records buy now or download  . .  photo by M. Macioce Matt Menovcik - vocals, guitar Lesli Wood - piano, vocals Bob Smolenski - cello  1.  .3. .4.
5.  .6. .7. 8.  9. 10.  youtube.com/saetamusicBIO Else Another Light Might Go Out is the fifth album from Saeta, painstakingly recorded and mixed by longtime collaborator Kramer (Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi, Palace Brothers, Low). Saeta features Matt Menovcik on vocals, guitar, and accordion, and Lesli Wood on vocals and piano. With Bob Smolenski on cello, they have created a lush collection of songs for Else Another Light Might Go Out, an hypnotic meditation on paradox and terror steeped in a lovely yet uncanny sense of Other. Wood (also in Ms. Led) left Detroit for Seattle in 1997 and Menovcik (also in Rope, Inc.) came out a year later. With a name based on a quote from the liner notes for Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain they founded Saeta: "His performance here captures the essence of the saeta - the heart pierced by grief." Saeta's first album Burn was mixed by Carl Hultgren from spacerockers Windy and Carl. This debut caught the attention of legendary underground experimental-pop producer and performer Kramer, who produced their next two albums, Structure In The Void and Resign To Ideal. For Saeta's fourth album, We Are Waiting All For Hope, the band worked with Steve Albini. Saeta has toured North America and Europe and shared the stage with Low, Mark Kozelek, DeVotchKa, Damien Jurado, Hem, Rasputina, and The Church. In 2007, Saeta's "You Fade" was used in the hit Italian film Giorni e Nuvole. Else Another Light Go Out achingly explores seasoned songwriter Menovcik struggling with very real demons, regarding the painful end of a long-term relationship and other dark circumstances. To transform this pain, Menovcik grasped desperately to the aesthetics of hope, love, and beauty -- creating the songs for Saeta's most recent album. The title is both a reference to a John Steinbeck novel he was reading when things fell apart and a reflection on its meaning. This album is Matt's talisman as he emerged from that dark tunnel. He hopes that it is a source of light to others as well. +++ "I rolled on one hip and reached in my side pocket for my razor blades and I felt the lump. Then in wonder I remembered the caressing, stroking hands of the light-bearer. For a moment it resisted coming out of my wet pocket. Then in my hand it gathered every bit of light there was and seemed red – dark red. A surge of wave pushed me against the very back of the Place. And the tempo of the sea speeded up. I had to fight the water to get out, and I had to get out. I rolled and scrambled and splashed chest deep in the surf and the brisking waves pushed me against the old sea wall. I had to get back – had to return the talisman to its new owner. Else another light might go out." --John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent +++ Matt Menovcik on songs from Else Another Light Might Go Out: "Promise Me Still" is one of my favorites. "When Will You Find Love" I wrote after a really terrible date and during a bad time. I like to think that people will see the positive in it of the 'search' described within. It's the getting there that's sometimes a lot of the beauty of things; this song is about that. "You Will Rise" is also about my hope of making it through a difficult time. I do not like winter and always think every one will be my last, but here it's more a metaphor of getting through anything difficult – rising above. Finally, "Shine" is yet another one. I wrote this in Italy on tour. It was written for our label guy who was one tour with us and he was just great to us. It's my reminder to myself that there is beauty out there and that I am still alive and can appreciate these things (this is very difficult to remember when you're not in a very good place). I love all of the songs on the album, though, and they all have very special meanings to me. +++ Regarding the other players on Else Another Light Might Go Out: Jordan Corbin is the woman who sang the opera part at the end of "Can't Imagine The World Without You." Alina To, who's in Grand Hallway and formally with Asahi, played the violin on opening track "Your Ghost, Cosenza." +++ PRESS Is this the Saeta? The very same sad and beautiful miniature orchestra who used to serenade the hardcore kids gathered at the old Paradox on the Ave? It is! After being quiet since 2004, Saeta are releasing Else Another Light Might Go Out on January 20, and the music is as aching as I remember it being nearly 10 years ago. Strings swell through the choruses, piano dances lightly along the strums of acoustic guitar, while the songs tell stories of longing, empty promises, and other such topics that probably shouldn't sound as pretty as they do. Sigh. Saeta. -- MEGAN SELING (the stranger) Reviews for previous Saeta albums: "The soundtrack for star-crossed lovers everywhere, it's music that makes heartache and sorrow almost pleasurable. " --Venuszine "Took hold, like ivy. ... With the stunningly somber Matt Menovcik and upbeat Lesli Wood trading leads, Saeta has a pleasing low-high, sour-sweet, depression-optimism vocal style." --Tom Scanlon, The Seattle Times "There's a unique dynamic between the two vocalists that can't be found anywhere else, and the piano-cello instrumentations are simple yet breathtakingly effective." --punkinternational.com "...put on the new LP and you'll swear you can see your own breath. The perceptible chill arises from the austerity of the cello, piano, and guitar arrangements, and the emotional nature of Matt Menovcik's lyrics." --Sean Nelson, The Stranger ALBUMS
 All My Little Words Live with Lesli, Jen Wood, Matt and Taryn Weber playing cello. Everything Pictures of YouLive - with Lesli, Matt, Andrea, Steph and Taryn. LABEL  CONTACT saetamusic@hotmail.com BOOKING booking@fishthecatrecords.com MYSPACE myspace.com/saeta . . website and video : Bob Smolenski cover art : Frida Clements photo : Michael Macioce . Copyright © 2008 SEATA . . . . |
