Music
Press
"Strings swell through the choruses, piano dances lightly along the strums of acoustic guitar, while the songs tell stories of longing, empty promises, and other such topics that probably shouldn't sound as pretty as they do. Sigh. Saeta. "
-- MEGAN SELING (the stranger)
- The Strager
"...The soundtrack for star-crossed lovers everywhere, it's music that makes heartache and sorrow almost pleasurable. " Venus Magazine - Vens Magazine
"...Saeta delves into the quieter sides of angst and emotion with simple acoustic guitar, piano, and cello arrangements that prove once and for all that less can absolutely be more." Performer Mag
- Performer Magazine
"...I had to let the fourth Saeta album grow on me; once it started, it took hold, like ivy. ...With the stunningly somber Matt Menovcik and upbeat Lesli Wood trading leads, Saeta has a pleasing low-high, sour-sweet, depression-optimism vocal style." Tom Scanlon, The Seattle Times - Seattle Times
"...There's a unique dynamic between the two vocalists that can't be found anywhere else, and the piano-cello instrumentations are simple yet breathtakingly effective." punkinternational.com - punkinternational.com
"...put on the new LP and you'll swear you can see your own breath. The perceptible chill arises from the austerity of the cello, piano, and guitar arrangements, and the emotional nature of Matt Menovcik's lyrics. " SEAN NELSON The Stranger, Seattle - The Stranger
Two-and-a-half minutes go by on the first track before Matt's voice rises from a slowly freezing water. Another forty-five seconds pass and Lesli Wood's voice rings in like a shot of morphine to remind him of the light one last time before he goes under. Then we lose him, and the wintry musical landscape returns." Samantha Barrow - Copper Press
- Copper Press
"Saeta demonstrate the rare ability to be both poets who express their authentic self and master the tools of their trade... in a way almost unheard of in the artistic wasteland of American music." - Message From the Homeland
- Message From The Homeland
Discography
Burn
Structure In The Void
Resign To Ideal
We Are Waiting All For Hope
Else Another Light Might Go Out
Photos
Bio
Else Another Light Might Go Out is the fifth album from Saeta, painstakingly recorded and mixed by longtime collaborator Kramer (Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi, Palace Brothers, Low).
Saeta features Matt Menovcik on vocals, guitar, and accordion, and Lesli Wood on vocals and piano. With Bob Smolenski on cello, they have created a lush collection of songs for Else Another Light Might Go Out, an hypnotic meditation on paradox and terror steeped in a lovely yet uncanny sense of Other.
Wood (also in Ms. Led) left Detroit for Seattle in 1997 and Menovcik (also in Rope, Inc.) came out a year later. With a name based on a quote from the liner notes for Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain they founded Saeta: "His performance here captures the essence of the saeta - the heart pierced by grief."
Saeta's first album Burn was mixed by Carl Hultgren from spacerockers Windy and Carl. This debut caught the attention of legendary underground experimental-pop producer and performer Kramer, who produced their next two albums, Structure In The Void and Resign To Ideal. For Saeta's fourth album, We Are Waiting All For Hope, the band worked with Steve Albini.
Saeta has toured North America and Europe and shared the stage with Low, Mark Kozelek, DeVotchKa, Damien Jurado, Hem, Rasputina, and The Church.
In 2007, Saeta's "You Fade" was used in the hit Italian film Giorni e Nuvole.
Else Another Light Go Out achingly explores seasoned songwriter Menovcik struggling with very real demons, regarding the painful end of a long-term relationship and other dark circumstances. To transform this pain, Menovcik grasped desperately to the aesthetics of hope, love, and beauty -- creating the songs for Saeta's most recent album. The title is both a reference to a John Steinbeck novel he was reading when things fell apart and a reflection on its meaning. This album is Matt's talisman as he emerged from that dark tunnel. He hopes that it is a source of light to others as well.
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