City Lake, Tomorrow Was The Golden Age, and No Home Of The Mind are masterful albums driven by Bing & Ruth’s leader David Moore at the piano, while their 4th release, Species, is an exploration of the sonic possibilities of the Farfisa organ aided only by a clarinet and double bass (played respectively by founding members Jeremy Viner and Jeff Ratner).
The title Species is a nod to both humanity and humility – a devotion to the godly intuition with which we are all endowed, and the humbleness required of us to perceive it. It’s also about suspended time and trance; not just a steady movement from A to B, but as something that flows, meanders and eddies, like water.
Now after traversing North America on tour with Mono in Spring 2022, Bing & Ruth has announced new EP Species (Solo Piano) which will be released on July 15. The two-track digital release finds the group’s leader David Moore transpose to piano Species songs “Body In A Room” and “Nearer” on piano, creating beautiful interpretations of the tracks that blossom as unique works of their own.

Of the EP Moore says, “While I wrote and recorded the songs on Species with an organ I had always felt, in the back of my mind, that they would also be interesting pieces to approach on the piano. So last winter when I found myself at the foot of a beautiful Steinway during a residency at Pulp Arts in Gainesville, FL it seemed like the perfect moment to set about reimagining them in that way. What you hear on this EP are the recordings of ‘Body In a Room’ and ‘Nearer’, respectively the first and last tracks from the album, performed with just me and that piano. Both songs explore the relationship between body and spirit.”

“unearthly dissonance: the auditory equivalent of awakening in the fog of a bad dream only to discover you’re still trapped in the nightmare” -The New York Times*“a titanic feat.., music that sounds simultaneously 300 years old and somewhere from the distant future.”* -The Guardian*“The duo traverses the art world and DIY noise scenes, and their music revels in the tension between elegance and disquiet, subverting the stereotypes associated with their chosen instruments.”* -Pitchfork (8.0 Album Review)*

“avant-pop that sounds unlike anything else”* -The FADER*”the ambient DIY duo making transcendental punk music”* -i-D*”a collaboration that stretches the possibilities”* -PAPER*”pure, shimmering, ethereal…doesn’t sound much like anything else”* -Document*“wildly sinister”* -Bandcamp*“subverting the baroque connotations of its arrangement in favor of something haunting and novel”* -Resident Advisor

LEYA – the duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and vocalist/violinist Adam Markiewicz – has long inhabited a beguiling world, blending Medieval-sounding origins with modern folk, classical, pop, and more. From deep roots in the NYC underground to international recognition as a crossover force, their work has found its way into spaces ranging from the club to fashion runways to Pornhub, and beyond.

The basis of LEYA is the unique tuning system of the harp, designed by Donovan for the project, which pairs with the distinctly wide, operatic singing range of Markiewicz, who further blends these vocals with processed violin tones. This sonic template is found on their 2018 debut The Fool and further developed on their 2020 breakthrough follow-up Flood Dream, which The New York Times called “the auditory equivalent of awakening in the fog of a bad dream only to discover you’re still trapped in the nightmare.” This sense of unease has become a distinctive tone for the project, a sort of collision of beauty and calamity that both soothes and disturbs its listeners.

LEYA’s distinctive sound was quickly noticed by other artists, starting with the release of their first single. In 2018 they were approached by rapper Brooke Candy to provide scoring and live acting for her adult film I Love You, which was produced by Pornhub for its Visionaries’ Directors Series and featured sound design by Sega Bodega. After an initial feature on The Fool, they followed in 2019 with the collaborative EP Angel Lust with Eartheater, with whom they have continued a close working relationship. In 2020 they released work with Actress, Liturgy, Drew McDowall (Coil/Psychic TV), and Christina Vantzou. In 2022 they released a fully collaborative mixtape comprised almost solely of features titled Eyeline. Other notable collaborators have included Ecco2K, Varg2TM, Julie Byrne, Okay Kaya, claire rousay, Deli Girls, James K, and many more.

LEYA’s latest release, I Forget Everything, marks their first return to the studio since 2022’s Eyeline and their first solo work since 2020’s Flood Dream. It comes on the heels of a relentless multi-year touring schedule, which began when COVID travel restrictions were lifted in 2021 and saw the duo performing steadily across the world through late 2023. Amidst this time, while working with many of the aforementioned collaborators, they also paired with fashion designers including Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein x i-D, Acne Studios, Elena Velez, HoodbyAir, video artists including Charles Atlas and Jeremiah Carter, choreographers including Loni Landon, and myriad others in varying modes of performance, scoring, and installations.

Since returning from tour, LEYA have sought to return to the basics of their raw sound but have also reimagined their language, harnessing production experiments percolating in their tangential work in recent years. I Forget Everything marks their first solo release containing elements of electronic production, sourcing from home-recorded to high-fidelity sounds, tracing the bounds of new experiments, while remaining rooted in harp, strings, and voice as the sole source of these sounds. The work regards a “haven scorned,” shifting in perspective between the larger world and one that is private, even imagined. A reaction to calamity, it imagines that abandonment is necessary. The work will mark only the beginning of a new path for LEYA amidst ever-expanding horizons.