Taken from her forthcoming new album, Second Circle The Horizon (June 20th, Thrill Jockey), Sally Anne Morgan has shared her bucolic new single “Flowers of Shandihar“. Her earthy banjo loop and delicate, soaring fiddle melodies are enchanting, a testament to her intuitive approach, proving that sometimes, the most sophisticated sounds come from the most organic methods.
As she describes below, the inspiration for the title came from an archaeological dig in Iraq, where Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers.
On the track, Morgan notes:
“I recorded a snippet of banjo and then cut and pasted it on my recording software. No doubt there is a more sophisticated way to achieve this but this is as tech savvy as I get. Then it was fun to improvise fiddle on top of it, and actually it turned out quite lovely. I did a few different takes on the fiddle, and then at some point they both come in and harmonize with each other — not something that I was intending when recording, but I noticed when listening back. So it ends with a bit of a fiddle dialog. The title is inspired from an archeological dig in Iraq called Shanidar where they found Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers. Somehow in my head it became locked in as “Shandihar”. I often find myself thinking about our paleolithic ancestors, what it means to be human: making music, burying our dead with flowers.”
Pre-Order Second Circle The Horizon (June 20th, 2025 – Thrill Jockey): https://thrilljockey.com/products/second-circle-the-horizon