Waker by Carl Waters

Carl Waters is a bookkeeper. Bookkeepers record financial transactions, auditing and translating the muck of business into a clean and comfortable state. A bookkeeper might say, “I see this mess you’ve made, and I can help.”

Waters first began writing songs on the banjo before taking to GarageBand. The carbonated beats that comprised Waters’ first album, Diet Pop, formed the basis of Waters’ exploration into calorie-free pop music — the auditory equivalent of artificial sugar.

The sounds of Waker began to take shape during a dalliance with computer games — first person RPGs like Amnesia: the Dark Descent and Firewatch — and in reading YA fantasy novels such as the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix. It was through this media that Waters became interested in the experience of walking alone — that lonely road that exists between this world and the worlds of our fantasies — and the complex, often opposing, emotions that solitude incites in all of us.

While reading Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy, Waters took a vested interest in one of the central objects in the books — a bandolier of seven magical bells. Such bells are the primary tools of the Abhorsens, a line of noble necromancers whose aim is to lay the dead to rest, restoring what has been disturbed by their malevolent counterparts to a state of nature. Mosrael, the second bell, is called the Waker. It transmits the ringer further into Death, but the auditor into Life. As a collection, Waker is meant to accompany the listener like a shadow, a faithful presence, a desktop screensaver floating steadfast in the background.

Waker releases via Soap Library on Friday, September 13, 2019 in limited edition cassette and unlimited digital forms, paired with a small silver bell to wake the living and shake the dread.

Soap Library is a holistic cassette tape label in New York City.

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