Hear Nineteen Thirteen’s New Single, ‘Cello and Drums Forever’

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Nineteen Thirteen is a duo consisting of Janet Schiff and Victor DeLorenzo. Their new single is titled “Cello and Drums Forever,” which is a description of Nineteen Thirteen in simplest terms. Janet Schiff is the cellist—her instrument was created in the year 1913, and is the duo’s namesake.

Almost 110 years later, Janet’s cello has been augmented with electronic pick-ups, which allows her to loop layers of her playing on top of itself. The drums are played by Victor DeLorenzo, a founding member of the Violent Femmes (his innovative percussion helped give them their signature sound). He also contributes poetic spoken word on this track.

“Cello and Drums Forever” was worked on between summer and December of last year, recorded by sound designer and engineer Josh Schmidt and mastered by Ryan Rumery.

“The origination of the piece is my voice memo of me composing and plucking out a cello/bass line,” Schiff says of the song writing process. “My parakeets were whistling in the background of the rough demo. I sent it over to Schmidt and he subtracted out the birds and synthesized them somehow, extracted the cello line and then we had the foundation of this piece.”

Schiff says after that, DeLorenzo recorded the drum tracks, and more layers of cello were added.

“Like 200 more. All of the cellos are triple tracked and you will hopefully be able to hear the cello orchestra and supercello,” Schiff says. The end result is a beautiful and trippy waltz. You can hear the track here:

soundcloud.com/nineteenthirteen/cello-and-drums-forever

“Cello and Drums Forever is available on iTunes on January 28: music.apple.com/album/1601020284?app=itunes&ls=1

Nineteen Thirteen’s next show is Feb. 20, opening for Langhorne Slim at The Back Room at Colectivo. More info: NineteenThirteen.com