Nearly six months after the release of his album Windswept, Photay (Evan Shornstein), returns with Windswept: Expansions, out March 28, 2025 via Mexican Summer. The expanded album features two new tracks from the album’s surplus of exceptional sound alongside the producer’s own remix of standout single “Air Lock.” The first of these new tracks, “Jet Stream,” is out today.
“Pushing past the dynamic ceiling of Windswept, ‘Jet Stream’ peaks in our upper atmosphere, and as a result, it didn’t fit on vinyl,” explains Shornstein. “At the start of 2025, on the other side of Windswept tours, I lost my home and studio to the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. Although this piece (and Windswept) were made well before this disaster, for me they grow in relevance. I use sound to understand the greater elemental forces and our vulnerability to them. I believe music will continue being a source of uplift and clarity amidst intensifying weather and atmospheric conditions.”
Following headline tours in the US and Asia in 2024, Photay will perform at London’s Polygon Live LDN Festival this May.
Photay’s Windswept is, in the producer’s own words, a nine-track sonic exploration of the wind as a “powerful, deep, unpredictable and at times overwhelming spirit.” Traversing IDM, ambient-techno, and jazz funk electronic modes in unpredictable, undeniable ways, Windswept blew away those familiar and new to Photay’s music, even being named the #1 album of 2024 by Juno Daily.
The album is primarily reliant on Shornstein’s fresh, home grown electronic textures and acoustic drumming. Numerous friends also add instrumental touches including Randall Fisher, Will Epstein, Carlos Niño, Laraaji, Nate Mercereau, and Mariana Bragada. Windswept’s compositions were largely written-out and specifically produced, though a couple were also turned into “songs” out of improvised sections. But all were under the spell of the wind, of climate change and weather phenomena — from their titles on down.
One reason that Windswept may especially feel like an organic solo statement is that the previous handful of projects Photay had been involved in were all explicitly collaborative. There was the new age improvisation albums with Niñoand friends; there was the album he produced for London-based Indian-American drummer Sarathy Korwar; and there was WEMA, a kind of studio supergroup involving members of the Afro-Latin dance band Penya and Tanzanian gogo master Msafiri Zawose. Each of those projects took Shornstein in very specific directions he did not dictate. Windswept was a response to those experiences, an opportunity to reconnect with his own vision, and apply newfound lessons.
There is admittedly a higher quotient of direct-towards-dance-floor energy to Windswept than recent Photay recordings have featured. Stretches of tracks are moderately home-rave-ready, but there is a thematic balance with moments of reservation as well, and of Evan’s voice embracing the moment. These songs — gorgeously sweet melodies and tart textures, layered synths and instruments, off-kilter rhythms and treated voices, all gliding from structure into another — contain much of the warmth and fresh-air that’s made Photay’s various sounds so distinctive and unified through the years.
Keep your mind open.
[Jet over to the subscription box!]
[Thanks to George at Terrorbird Media.]