“On Fire Island” is Saapato’s introspective journey into the heart of one of New York’s most unique and vulnerable landscapes. Born from a residency with the National Park Service on the island, this album diverges from Principato’s initial expectations of capturing avian melodies to instead embrace the raw, unyielding forces of wind, waves, and the whispering grasses that define Fire Island’s rare and rapidly disappearing ecosystems.

The album is a testament to Principato’s encounter with the island’s beauty and its precarious future. Amidst the omnipresent hums, whirs, and whooshing of the natural world, “On Fire Island” weaves a narrative of contrast—celebrating the untouched wilderness while lamenting the scars left by human encroachment. From the pollution that threatens the marsh ecosystems to the steady retreat of the shoreline, the album serves as an aural snapshot of a biodiverse jewel on the brink of transformation.

Through a delicate balance of field recordings made on the island and synthesizer compositions crafted by night inside a beachside bungalow, Saapato offers a slow, gentle exploration of this dichotomy. The sonic terrain of “On Fire Island” is an immersive experience that reveals the eerie fragility of our natural world and echoes a plea for conservation. It invites listeners to feel the undercurrents of urgency, to recognize the beauty that surrounds us, and to acknowledge the impact of our actions on the environment. With “On Fire Island,” Saapato continues to challenge us to listen more deeply, not just to the music, but to the world around us. 

This album is a board rip from a live show that took place on 5/21/2022 at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn. It was part of a monthly series that combined ambient music with a lunch service. This afforded a good deal of time for improvising as each show was about two hours long. These tracks incorporate elements of songs that were previously released as well as material that’s yet to be released - it depicts a sort of hazy limbo that is common between proper album releases. Not quite here, not quite there, but something totally unique and ephemeral. These songs were improvised live, but now are solidified and unchanging compositions in their release.

For Korin, sister I don’t get to meet but forever hold in my heart.

All proceeds from this track will be donated directly to Doctor’s Without Borders to fight humanitarian crises worldwide.

Welcome to Singing House ~ an ongoing journey into sound and space. Singing House is a petri dish of improvised ambient performance, field recordings, and loops layered or deconstructed and sent whirring through amplifiers into the air. From the air they go into an oven, or an attic, or straight into a carpet. A microphone may sit two stories above the origin of the sound, it may sit outside the house, it may sit inside my own mouth as a walk through a hallway. A piano in the garage might be piped through a megaphone inside the refrigerator. A speaker may blast drones from inside a plastic bag submerged in a bathtub. Singing House is without formula. Grab some good headphones and come voyage through my childhood home in a new and curious way.

All songs were composed on 12/6/2020 from the back of a car at the Forsythe Bird Sanctuary in Galloway, NJ.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu

Written on the day of Alex’s passing, Song For Alex Trebek is a tribute to the late host of Jeopardy! The song samples the iconic “thinking” music and is stretched to 14 minutes (the approximate length of a Jeopardy! episode without commercials). The synths layered on top all play variations on the theme. RIP Alex

Fragile Comforts Vol. 1 is the first installment in an ambient series by Saapato examining how mundane spaces and experiences can offer great joy. The tracks are distilled from hours of home recordings and live improvisations that were recorded in the winter of 2018. Each one is an assemblage of private moments that unfold slowly, to reflect the deep tranquility that emerges from the feeling of being at home within yourself.

Somewhere Else ~ doesn’t exist ~ there is only here ~ a product of otherwherewhens ~ of otherwhenwheres are a product ~ here is only there’s ~ existing doesn’t ~ Somewhere Else

The sounds found on this record were created and captured between 2017 and 2023, come from dozens of different geographic locations and were morphed and reassembled to attempt to portray intimate psychic states we all experience that are the amalgam of familiar rooms and smells, misrememberings, dreams, seasons, and routines. Half above, half below the surface of consciousness, like some existential crocodilian. All of these songs (I hope) sound like places you’ve never been but are eerily comforting, even if you’re not totaly sure how or why. Thank you for listening.