“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.

Album info from the Saapato newsletter:

Hi everyone, hope you’re enjoying the last days of Summer.

The Cradle’s Cornucopia is a collaborative record made with Paco Cathcart. If you’re unfamiliar, Paco makes music as the Cradle. They’re a lofi/freak folk wizard and has been a bastion of the NY diy scene for over a decade. I wanted to talk a bit about Paco’s work (of which I am a massive fan) and our album creation process so buckle up, this is going to be a wordy one. Big thanks to the boys of Window Sill Records for putting the record out and to Bobby Ditta for the cover art.

I learned of Paco just over a decade ago when I got a text from my friend Dan (who currently plays in Victory Land, Billboard Style, and 6,000 other bands) saying there was a show in a few hours that I couldn’t afford to miss. At the time I was living in DC and there was a great diy venue just above a cajun restaurant called The Bayou. The venue was appropriately called “Above The Bayou.” That night I took the bus downtown with my friend Jesse and heard Paco play songs from their album Drink the Water on a wooden xylophone that was running through a reverse delay via contact mics duct taped to the edges of the instrument. It was raw and melodic and unlike anything that I had ever heard in my life. I was in awe. Since then, I’ve followed Paco’s work as both a fan and a friend. A little about Paco and my relationship to their music:

Paco plays live relentlessly. I’ve seen them play around 30 times in a myriad of different configurations (solo, two-piece, three-piece, five-piece, electronic, acoustic, autotune sets, drum machine sets, horn ensemble sets, you name it!). Every show is a totally different experience and each is more transcendent than the last. I’ve been fortunate enough to play shows with Paco 5-6 times over the years in a few different groups. Once very notably, Paco recorded my band’s set from the crowd on a tape recorder and then sampled us during their set 25 minutes later. Mind bending shit. I’ve got a bootleg of this set if you’re interested.

Paco also plays in a ton of other projects including Old Table, Big Neck Police, Sweet Baby Jesus, Climax Landers, Eyes of Love. If you’ve seen these bands, you’ve seen Paco. They also produce albums for a ton of bands (including my band Boon’s third album Morning’s). Recording with Paco opened my eyes to how there are no rules to making a record. The guitars on the album Paco produced for my band were recorded into microphones that were all duct taped to a chair and pointed at three different guitars. We tracked them all at once, and after three takes Paco would say “that’s enough, next.” They have such a ramshackle and raw method of capturing sounds - real sonic alchemist type shit. Their bandcamp page used to say “get in touch to record if you want that analog jank” or something of that sort.

Paco has dozens and dozens of albums released on bandcamp. I have every single one that was released on tape or vinyl in my physical collection. The output is as varied as it is consistent and beautiful. The Cradle is your favorite band’s favorite band’s favorite band if you know what I mean. Below I’ll recommend a bunch of their records for those of you who are not already familiar.

At some point in 2023 I got the idea that it would be cool to open some heads in the ambient world to Paco’s work. As a way of starting this, I took a bunch of their old music and processed it beyond recognition. Time stretched it, passed it through dozens of delays, and looped/rerecorded pieces into collaged clouds. Then I hit up Paco and asked if they had a day in the next few months to meet and capture some sound. A few weeks later I pulled up to their apartment adorned with unique/modified instruments (toy pianos, painted tiny guitars, hand drums, etc.) and got to work. I set up a bunch of microphones and cassette recorders all over the room while they tuned their guitar, we shared a joint and then hit record. I gave Paco a pair of headphones that played back the mangled Cradle recordings I had made at home and they improvised over them for a few hours. Paco had no idea they were playing along to their own music until we were done. It was a sort of musical sleight of hand. I remember telling Paco when we finished and they were like “huh? no waaaaay.”

I went home and further processed the improvisations, cut them up, collaged them together, layered some field recordings from this pond I love in Pine Plains, NY,  and eventually passed them to Andrew Weathers for mastering. This process was slow, I took my time, it was a calming meditative side quest to a lot of the other shit I was working on at the time. This record is the result.

I’m honored to be offering a new lens through which people may be able to experience Paco’s genius. Even beyond their music, the way Paco navigates the swirling cesspool that is the music industry offers a glimmer of hope into what’s possible for diy artists in our modern age. If you’ve made it this far down the email, I fear that you are a part of a very small subset of people left that are truly interested in active music discovery. This tiny community of freaks is all we get in this stupid world. Paco is the embodiment of this community. I highly recommend you join the Cradle Music Club on Patreon here and support their work. They share so much music through this page (outtakes, live albums, early access records, etc) and it all rules. We talked for a while about whether or not to put our album onto big streamers and we landed on not doing it. Bandcamp and Subvert only. An album that will never be spoon-fed to people by an algorithm that prioritizes profit over art. Hopefully we’ll do some shows soon.

I’ll drop this here again… listen to/purchase The Cradle’s Cornucopia

The Cradle - a listener’s guide: Here are a dozen of my favorite Cradle albums in no particular order. 

Bag of Holding - Probably the one I’ve listened to the most. One of Paco’s more straightforward works, amazing songs, amazing string arrangements, perfect album top to bottom.

Drink the Water - The one that started it all for me. Tripped out rambling folk. Distortion, beautiful guitars, loopy loping glory. The title track is a life changer. Hints of Sun City Girls!

Laughing in My Sleep - A buffet of sound. Lots of awesome rhythmic, driven guitars, tender songs, and jubilance, This one is a journey.

Half a Double Life - Saw Paco play live a lot around the time this one came out. Chords of the Lord is an all timer. Lush, analog, beautiful!

Radio Wars - Really awesome electronic/acoustic hybrid sonic palette. Every song on this one is an ear worm.

Bodies Coiled Around Themselves - Older album that’s gorgeous in its ecstatic chaos. Got an early AnCo feel to it during certain moments.

Walking With The Moon - Early versions of songs from Down on Them (mentioned below) appear on this album in their raw, lofi original form. Bottleneck Blues is an all timer.

The Layers of Honey - Another classic, this album has the song Calendar Boy on it, which is undeniably one of the best songs I’ve ever heard in my life.

Down on Them - Paco goes hifi. A great band and a great new side of what they’re capable of.

Temperate Lands - Julian Lynch style freak folk. Lots of walls of strange instruments. Also a lot of stripped rambling ballads.  Feels like a safari through a cartoon wonderland.

The Glare of Success - Totally insane album. Disjointed, frantic, catchy, busted, singular.

Get Yourself a Man & Other Love Songs - Paco’s newest. Lots of french horn. Still getting to know this one but already love it.