Rebecca El-Saleh (Kitba) and guitarist Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel) have teamed up for a collaborative project called R&D. They’ll be releasing their debut album, I’ll Send You a Sign, on June 27 via Knishkowy’s own Ruination Record Co. Running over six minutes, the project’s first single “Everything Becomes a Sign” is a stunning composition that isn’t quite ambient but eschews the bones of traditional songwriting, too. It functions as two halves, with Knishkowy queuing up big, loud acoustic guitar chords to lead a transition. The first is mysterious and almost wary, searching for their ideas in an unknown world, while the latter—accented by wonderfully impressionistic guitar chords—brings to mind those slick oil rainbows that come after a heavy rain. Why? I dunno. That’s just what I’m seeing!
“I would come home from practice and still be hearing the melodies we played,” shares Knishkowy of the single before commenting on the full project. “We wanted to make the record because we wanted to hear it. There’s a freedom to the sound, but there was also a freedom to the physical act of making it that I’m not sure I’d achieved before.”
Check out “Everything Becomes a Sign” below, and pre-order I’ll Send You a Sign here.
