Texas-native Botany, otherwise known as Spencer Stephenson, unveils ‘Anchor’, as a splendid free download. It’s the first gem taken from his debut LP ‘Lava Diviner (Truestory)’, released through Western Vinyl on October 29th.
“On Lava Diviner, I wanted to conjure that same headspace that artists like Roger Dean, and even Zdzislaw Beksinski project in their iconic paintings,” says Stephenson. “I tried to evoke those grand, colourful, surreal landscapes that are mind-bending yet oddly comforting – sci-fi and epic and holy, all at the same time.”
‘Lava Diviner (Truestory)’ follows Botany on an intensely personal journey as he makes his way home within himself, returning to his celestial centre.
The album was created at various Texas locations using a jumble of equipment, from aging desktop computers, samplers, guitars, bells, flutes, tape recorders, turntables, violin playing room-mates and much more besides.
“As work on the record progressed, I began to realize that the musical journey was a direct reflection of my most hard-to-quantify life experiences.” he explains.
“Lava Diviner is about very real transformations in my being, so it’s a true story in that sense… I always imagined my first album being like a volcano, with years of pent-up emotion and musical ideas bubbling up to a cathartic release. So, I always knew that symbolism would end up being a part of my first full-length.”
