Past Inside the Present (PITP) is the home of a passionate, collaborative artistic community in pursuit of the world’s most inventive and engaging quiet music. From our headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana, we curate works by musicians from across the globe, partnering them with a stable of acclaimed visual artists, designers and engineers to create a singular aesthetic. We honor posterity over profit and, since our founding in 2018, have sought a standard for modern ambient and experimental artistry that we believe will inspire others long into the future.
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2026

Slow Dancing Society – The Disappearing Collective Vol. II​ (PITP72)
14 JAN. 2026 / LP / DIGITAL

Since taking on the Slow Dancing Society mantle in 2006, Pacific Northwest-based Drew Sullivan has issued more than two dozen collections built from radiant analog synthesis, treated guitars, and an intuitive sense of texture. The Disappearing Collective, Vol. I (PITP, 2020) was an essential expression of reverberating beauty pulled from the darkness of an uncertain era, and six years on, The Disappearing Collective, Vol. II (PITP, 2026) expands on that theme with the wisdom and resolve that have emerged since. “It started with considering where I was in my life back then,” Sullivan notes, “and a desire to reimagine that peculiar headspace, to play in its world again with a different perspective.”

“I Never Will Forget Those Nights” opens the album with a pensive hum and swirling synths over snow-tire ambience, as subtle chord changes mimic shifts in wind direction across a dormant field. There is a particular kind of nocturnal comfort here, not entirely of this world, but familiar in its warmth and welcoming pull. “A Light in the Window at Home” rises from a mysterious howl beneath angelic drones, each element in complementary contrast to the other, while the rumbling bass of “Ephemeris” underscores subtle tonal explorations, smeared across a clock face whose second hand ticks patiently in the background. The quiet power of these pieces illustrates a mastery of world-building through nuanced arrangement and wordless storytelling, each with its own peaks, valleys, and blind corners.

About the album title’s origins, Sullivan cites a line by slow-folk artist Matthew Ryan, who sings, “The things we love will one day disappear / First slow, and then so quick”. This simple, cutting notion applies at the personal scale, as well as the cosmic, and describes perfectly the complicated dance of honoring loss through memory while remaining receptive to the joys of the present. As much as ever, the job of the artist is to return us to ourselves, to tilt our gaze upward and offer a hand on the shoulder amid tender desolation.

On “Tenshi”, soft rain falls in veils behind a slow, crystalline keyboard theme that recalls the spacious, reverent beauty of Hiroshi Yoshimura. Quiet strings develop beneath panning pulses that feel like delicate Morse code messages filtering in from across the ether, conveying some nebulous message to those back home. Elsewhere, we hear blissed-out, shimmering synth arpeggiations, softly glitching fragments of melody, and other disarmingly organic forms built from a shapeshifting combination of guitar, keys, and software.

Closing track, “Blue Suburban Skies”, unfolds with understated momentum, driven by sparse percussion and an array of harmonic textures that recall the most heartbreaking and emotive parts of the legendary score to Twin Peaks. Halfway through, a rich string arrangement joins a cascade of synthesizers to perfectly summarize Sullivan’s wide-ranging skills and worlds of contrast. “I am always working on different projects, and have had a ‘Volume II’ folder for a while, growing as things presented themselves from various sessions,” Sullivan says. “Ultimately, the songs tell me where they want to go.”

CREDITS:
All music written, arranged, performed, and produced by Slow Dancing Society. Mixed and mastered at SDS Studios by Drew Sullivan. Layout and design by zakè.

​FORMAT:
  • Limited Vinyl Record - 160g color vinyl record housed in a 3mm matte jacket. Full color center labels. Black innersleeve. Download code insert. Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 100.
  • Limited Vinyl Record - 160g audiophile black vinyl record housed in a 3mm matte jacket. Full color center labels. Black innersleeve. Download code insert. Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 100.
  • Digital Download [at] pitp.bandcamp.com

DISTRIBUTION:
Past Inside the Present Bandcamp (US), PITP.US (US), Norman Records (UK), Juno Records (UK), Soundohm (IT/EU), and others.

PUBLISHING:
© 2026 Past Inside the Present
​℗ 2026 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI)
zakè – Cantus for Winter in Six Parts (PITP71)
01 JAN. 2026 / LP / CD / DIGITAL

zakè’s deep attachment to the seasons of the Midwest, along with his intuitive approach to sound creation, has led to a deep and varied body of analog ambient drone recordings across the past ten years. Many of his albums take on the forms and colors of the space in which they are heard, but others convey something more fleeting and indefinable, far beyond the five senses. Cantus for Winter in Six Parts creates a space for comfort, contemplation, nostalgia, and longing; a moment of stillness that honors the cycle of all things, wandering fallow landscapes while dreaming of their renewal.

“Part One” opens with soft, analog hiss and smoky, legato cello, melting into calm waves of drone that immediately envelop the listener. The shifts are subdued, as barely-there field recordings haunt the backdrop, filling the negative space with spectral reverberations. The seamless transition into “Part Two” is marked only by a tectonic rumble, as snow falls on a thin roof and dry logs crackle, creating a hushed atmosphere of sublime calm through deep resonances and a sustained wisp of pianissimo violin. In moments like these, one understands the breadth of zakè’s influences, especially heavy rock and metal, where extreme restraint can often hit with greater effect and catharsis than any amount of wild abandon.

On “Part Four”, wind begins to batter the cladding, a rippling gasp beneath rich, orchestral tones. A moment of pure, centered meditation follows, stretching out to infinity as the first side concludes its transportive arc. “Part Five” is a miniature that nevertheless contains its own yawning universe of iridescent glow for a brief and spellbinding moment, emptying the lungs before the 19-minute finale. As the central loop of “Part Six” is established, each slow-burning pass brings a minuscule build in intensity, and a delicate shift in layering. These variations embody the ineffable magic of winter nights that offer pure solitude amid accumulating ice, and by capturing this rare feeling so vividly, zakè finds endlessness in the momentary.

CREDITS:
Produced, arranged, and mixed by zakè. Engineered and mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard. Photography by Benoît Pioulard on Polaroid SX-70 film. Layout and design by zakè.

​FORMAT:
  • 4-Panel Digipak 2xCD
  • Limited Vinyl Record - 160g boreal blue vinyl record housed in a 3mm matte jacket. Full color center labels. Black innersleeve. Download code insert. Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 100.
  • Limited Vinyl Record - 160g audiophile black vinyl record housed in a 3mm matte jacket. Full color center labels. Black innersleeve. Download code insert. Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 100.
  • Digital Download [at] pitp.bandcamp.com

DISTRIBUTION:
Past Inside the Present Bandcamp (US), PITP.US (US), Norman Records (UK), Juno Records (UK), Soundohm (IT/EU), and others.

PUBLISHING:
© 2026 Past Inside the Present
​℗ 2026 Past Inside the Present Publishing (BMI)

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