The Predatory Wasp
The title of Corrina Repp’s new LP, ACTIVITY DREAM: Instrumentals on the guitar Vol. 1, tells you everything you need to know. It’s beautiful, fragile music, ripe with wonder and yearning. There’s also a 36 page photo book that accompanies the release, described by Repp as full of “perfect accidents I feel lucky enough to witness.”
https://corrinarepp.bandcamp.com/album/activity-dream-instrumentals-on-the-guitar-vol-1
Released with zero fanfare (or at least none that I could find) is this beautiful two-track EP from TWP favourite Corrina Repp in collaboration with Rachel Blumberg as Arch Cape. Produced a while back “as a way to explore working together again after years of playing and conjuring”, they are available on streaming platforms for the first time today.
The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter delves back into a song that soundtracked a memorable roadtrip
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
Currently based in Los Angeles, Corrina Repp originally emerged in the Portland scene and has, across six albums and two decades, carefully and patiently developed her sound. Fragile, delicately crafted, and often stripped down to the very barest of bones, Corrina’s music explores universal themes through intimate and often personal narratives that gives it real emotional heft. I first became aware of Corrina via her 2006 album The Absent and The Distant and still go back to it on an almost weekly basis, especially the track Afloat, which is, without doubt, one of the saddest and most beautiful songs ever written. Her brilliant new album, Island, is out now, and if you’re a newcomer to her work it’s a great place to start.
For her One Track Mind selection, Corrina talks about the transportive experience of hearing a song from a titan of US jazz and pop music for the very first time.
Afloat came out in 2006 on Corrina Repp’s album The Absent and the Distant, and is a record I come back to all the time. It’s one of the most heartbreaking, delicate, beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. The piano line that trickles in halfway through is completely inspired, and the whole thing is drenched in a kind of washed out melancholia that is just perfect. Two and a half minutes of sheer, choking bliss.
The Predatory Wasp 