There’s nothing that resonates as deeply as the advice of a grandparent. While many elders discourage the uphill pursuit of a life lived playing music, Ernest Orlando offered his grandson Michael one simple, salient piece of advice: “If you want to play music forever, that’s fine… just make sure you have a plan”. Now armed with over ten thousand hours of playing music across 3 continents and a decades deep arsenal of songs in his back pocket, Michael Saracino and his partner in music + life, Tara Lynn Stanclik have a new EP and a plan - all done For Ernest.
For Ernest is a fresh ambient-acoustic duo that stretches the definition of folk music beyond its normal bounds. As an experienced live looper, Michael utilizes his guitar to create percussive and ambient sounds in tandem with Tara’s harmonies and keyboard to build sonic landscapes that are as equally inspired by the songwriting of Damien Rice as they are the production of Bon Iver. Their new EP, Buildings, was conceived and recorded with this live approach in mind. Michael says: “These songs were constructed with looping in mind; my songwriting is often heavily influenced by the production I hear accompanying it, and I wanted to meld the two worlds in real time.”
Michael’s background as one of the Niagara region’s most sought after solo acoustic performers let him hone his looping chops while quietly amassing a hefty backlog of his own original music. When it came time to play those songs live, Tara’s inclusion was the byproduct of the relationships’ organic evolution from friends to partners to musical duo. The five song effort highlights their genre-bending approach: Until We’re Ghosts serves as a Jason Isbell-informed storyteller origin story of sorts while Never Here features a Radiohead-esque production that captures this pessimistic urge pandemic-era songwriting brought out. Keep Me Warm, the EP’s feature track, was a premonition of sorts as Michael wrote the lyrics in Berlin a year before joining forces with Tara.
Buildings was recorded at the Barn on Maple & mixed by Michael Saracino. Additional instrumentation was provided by Dan Serre (Shitbats, Sleepy Jean) and TJ Rogers (the Caverners, Eli & the Strawman), with mastering by Kristian Montano.
