fiveighthirteen is a psychedelic downtempo group from Dover, New Hampshire, that specializes in live performance. They began with an interest in improvisation and reverse-engineering electronic music that was traditionally created in the studio, subsequently working towards bringing it to the stage, with band members assuming the roles of sequencers and drum machines. Drawing inspiration from a diverse range of electronic artists — Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Bjork, and Radiohead among them — fiveighthirteen has found a unique sonic identity in their unabashed love for hardware samplers, tape delays, and oilcan delays.
"A Fever of Rays" is their newest work and it showcases an inveterate respect for the sounds of nature as the bellow of frogs, birds, and wild outdoor spaces were given the same status as electric guitars and analog synths. Human voices were taken from the band’s own field recordings as well as vintage tapes borrowed from the dawn of audio technology. With equal footing in the realms of jazz, electronica, indie rock, and ambient music, fiveighthirteen invents a moody and surprising world of swirling electronic ephemera, bringing musique concrète alongside the spirited wailing of John Coltrane as a blueprint for their analog grooves. "early winter late day sun" is the final track of their full-length opus and captures the essence of their fresh and nuanced musical aesthetic — marrying a slick snare drum shuffle with layers of warm keyboard delay, mercurial octaves from the acoustic piano, and a lightly overdriven jazz guitar.
