If anyone was looking to solve the mystery of “Who will Sam Gendel’s third full-length record of 2024 be written and performed in collaboration with?” we have your answer. Today we’re getting an early stream of the new LP Hardy Boys, which Gendel (who’s previously released ambient nu-jazz alongside Sam Wilkes, Fabiano do Nascimento, Marcella Cytrynowicz, and Ugne Uma in the past 12 months alone) composed with Emile Mosseri—who himself has a collaborative history working with electronic-ambient artist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, in addition to his notable film work on Minari, Kajillionaire, and more. This new 14-track collection takes at least two titles from Franklin W. Dixon’s children’s book series (not sure “I Died 5,000 Times” is canon in that series—perhaps some Joe Hardy fan-fic was released with that title, though), while each recording harnesses the chilling imagery a number of those books’ covers elicited.
Hardy Boys is the result of four years of friendship reduced to several hours in the studio together, some of them in the midst of exhilarating circumstances. “I remember one of our first sessions that ended up being the backbone of this record was recorded the morning we thought my wife went into labor,” Mosseri shares. “It ended up being a false alarm and the hospital sent us home and Sam and I ended up keeping our session. It was one of the more psychedelic days of my life—[it] felt like another universe had swallowed us up for a few hours and then spit us back out into the world. Then Sam came over and we recorded a big chunk of the record and three days later my wife gave birth to our little girl.”
The record doesn’t officially drop until tomorrow, but we have an early stream of the whole thing below. Check it out, and catch Mosseri and Gendel in LA on August 22 and 23 as they play a pair of intimate shows at the Philosophical Research Society Library.
