ON AIR LIBRARY to Re-issue 2001 Self-titled EP

New York City experimental pop group ON AIR LIBRARY, featuring members of The School of Seven Bells, is re-issuing its 2001 self-titled EP. The first single, 'A Word From Benjamin Spock,' was released alongside the announcement.

ON AIR LIBRARY emerged during what, in hindsight, feels like the dazzling finale of a July 4th fireworks display. For decades, the city's combustible underground music scene had shaped culture without fully breaking into the mainstream. That changed in the early 2000s with bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture, The Strokes, and Interpol.

ON AIR LIBRARY seemed poised to enter this rarefied realm. The trio shared stages and studios with many of the scene's defining artists, earned glowing critical praise, and developed a singular sound before dissolving just as the moment was opening up for them. The Queens-based group's floaty, Eno-inspired pop offered an artful, ambient counterpoint to the dominant garage-rock revival, anticipating the scene's gradual shift toward electronic and dance music. Their self-titled debut EP — originally released in 2001 as a limited pressing of just 1,000 CDs — presented six songs that felt both homespun and futuristic.

For the EP's 25th anniversary, ON AIR LIBRARY is making the long out-of-print release available on streaming services for the first time, while also issuing its first-ever vinyl edition. The group is also announcing its return with new music on the horizon.

ON AIR LIBRARY was founded in 1998 by Wann and singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Claudia Deheza. During the recording of the debut EP, they were joined by Claudia's twin sister, Alejandra Deheza. The sisters would later earn widespread acclaim with School of Seven Bells, but for seven formative years they and Wann created music together as ON AIR LIBRARY.

The band's unusual name came from an obscure, new millennium-themed film set in a remote African village without television or radio. Instead, the community received stories through a man who read books aloud and broadcast them via ham radio. The trio embraced the idea of transmitting ideas unconstrained by genre, a philosophy that guided their restless musical approach across two EP's and the album that followed. The New York Times described the group's music as 'dreamy pop melodies woven through big storm clouds of feedback and layers of electric guitars.'

The reissued EP captures the band in exhilarating self-discovery mode. The three musicians, armed with modest analog equipment, crafted a dreamy, textural sound from tape loops, a Farfisa organ, an Silvertone guitar, vintage tube amplifiers, a Roland Juno 60 synthesizer, a cheap Casio, and just three effects pedals. This motley assortment of gear and its limited sonic palette defined the self-titled EP. It would also be a world away from today's any-sound-at-your-fingertips fleet of plugins and recording platforms.

It also serves as a time capsule. The repackaged artwork is a grainy, black and white flyer featuring the trio silhouetted beneath the illuminated Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The photograph was taken before history changed forever and in an eerie coincidence — the image was taken from a flyer for a show the band had scheduled for Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

The lead single, A Letter to Benjamin Spock, begins with a soft, languidly beckoning ambient motif that feels as though it has drifted in from deep space. The song unfolds patiently, unbound by any beats, but swathed with sustained synthesizer chords, Claudia Deheza's spectral vocal, woozy textures, and low-register Silvertone guitar melodies. It inhabits the space between the glitch experiments of Oval's Markus Popp and the immersive atmospheres of Brian Eno, marrying digital decay with luminous ambient beauty.

Beneath its tranquil, womb-like atmosphere, however, the song's lyrics are direct and emotionally unsparing. Claudia sings: I don't resent you anymore/You have a lot to learn/Love isn't something painful a child has to earn/Now I understood/I'm moving on/Is that what you intended?