Video: S. Carey & John Raymond Release 'Blood Orange' Video From New Album 'Shadowlands'

GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter John Raymond and Bon Iver sideman S. Carey released their video for “Blood Orange,” taken from their collaborative new album Shadowlands.

So far the full-length has been praised by The New York Times, Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, Flood Magazine, Under the Radar, Atwood Magazine, and Paste, who said “Shadowlands is an ambitious record… combining Carey’s vocals and Raymond’s unmissable horn-playing. Organic, natural and electronic tones and arrangements converge, opening the songs up and begging every listener to look further within every sonic majesty.”

The album was produced by Sun Chung, and is out now on the Libellule Editions imprint of Chung’s Red Hook Records. Raymond and Carey’s East Coast tour kicks off next week, full list of dates below. 

“As we were getting ideas together for the music, Sean sent me a demo of a song he had made years ago with longtime collaborator Zach Hanson that never went anywhere,” John Raymond explains.

“I was really into it - the drum programming, bass line, and just the overall vibe. I ended up changing the harmony and phrasing of the chorus, we added a second verse, and I wrote an instrumental at the end as well. When we got into the studio with the full band, the very first take we got was pure magic from start to finish. It was like a dream, so much so that when we finished someone asked, ‘Were we even recording?’ There’s so much subtlety and nuance in everyone’s playing, and the interplay between everyone is simply electric. It quietly turned out to be one of my favorite songs on the record.

"This live video is a stripped down version of the song that we shot at the Masonic Ballroom in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and it features Aaron Parks on piano, Jeremy Boettcher on bass, Ben Lester on synth and pedal steel, and Hannah Hebl on voice. It was engineered and mixed by Brian Joseph, who we recorded the album with, and the video was shot by Ivy Media."

For S. Carey and John Raymond, the opportunity to collaborate has been a long time in the making. After meeting as music students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where they studied both classical and jazz music, Carey and Raymond’s careers went in very different directions. Carey would become the right-hand man for Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver), collaborate with the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Bruce Hornsby among others, and release four albums to critical acclaim from Pitchfork, NPR, and more.

Simultaneously, Raymond was carving out a career as an internationally-recognized jazz trumpeter, “steering jazz in the right direction” (Downbeat Magazine) by releasing eight albums of his own and collaborating on many more, including four nominated for a GRAMMY. 

The two reunited in 2018 when Raymond sat in with Carey on tour, and they started to float the idea of working on a collaborative project. An initial round of sessions in 2019 yielded the opening two tracks of the album, but much of the other music was still in experimental form until Raymond shared it with Sun Chung, who was producing for ECM Records at the time. Chung took an interest immediately and came on board to further develop the project. 

The result is Raymond and Carey’s upcoming co-release, Shadowlands, a stunning, gorgeous collection of songs uprooted from simple genre descriptors. Recorded in the woods of Eau Claire, Wisconsin where the two met almost twenty years ago, the music combines the warmth and beauty of Carey’s aesthetic with the improvisational, spontaneous nature of Raymond’s, blurring the lines between indie folk, forward-thinking jazz, lush pop, and atmospheric electronic music.

Soaring and anthemic moments are balanced with the intimate and meditative, giving way to a wide range of expression. Surrounding Carey’s breathy vocals and Raymond’s lyrical horn is an earthy sonic landscape that blends acoustic and electronic textures effortlessly, and the subtle, electric moments of musical interplay throughout the album repeatedly invite you deeper into their new musical world. 

John Raymond & S. Carey Tour Dates:

10/26 - Newport News, VA: Ferguson Center for the Arts*
10/29 - Brooklyn, NY: National Sawdust*
10/30 - Philadelphia, PA: MilkBoy Philly
10/31 - Northampton, MA: Parlor Room
11/1 - Boston, MA: The Red Room
11/2 - Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire
11/3 - New Haven, CT: Firehouse 12
* with special guest Gordi

Photo Credit: Kyle Lehman

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