Kristen Gallerneaux - Life Day - 1CD

19 April 2026 is my fifth "Life Day.” Each year, I celebrate surviving a shockingly random “unprovoked” massive bilateral pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest that occurred on the evening of April 19, 2021. After being resuscitated, I was unconscious in the ether for several days, eventually surfacing in intensive care where I narrowly evaded being placed on life support. During my long recovery, a lot of people messaged to ask if I’d had visions of an afterlife. A fair question, considering my history of writing and making art about paranormal culture. Really, I’d say, my only focus was staying rooted to life in the present. Anything that may or may not occur after death was irrelevant.

Every April 19th since, I've made a point to spend time in my home studio recording new music. The tracks that form Life Day - my third release on Shadow World - came out of those sessions. This reflective process of gratitude became an essential part of my coming to terms with the initial event and the permanent impacts it’s had on my life in the form of a rare blood clotting disorder and anoxic brain injury. I’ve had a ton of support from my partner and countless friends along the way. And whenever my doctor hears me complain, he reminds me that almost no one survives what I went through – then he tells me to “Go on and live your miraculous second life!”

As for instrumentation, there are the electronics and processed field recordings (many from the hospital) that have always been core to my practice. But on each track, I also set a rule to weave in the long-abandoned analog instruments I played in my youth - a challenging but also freeing undertaking, since, due to the brain injury, I’d largely forgotten how to play them. You'll hear raw improvised layers of fiddle, accordion drones, processed voice, and sawmill-tuned banjo. I have always been shy about playing these things live, especially my fiddle which is a temperamental instrument used by my great grandfather at rural Canadian square dances in the 1930s-40s. It resists standard tuning, preferring to live in drop-key "Dead Man's Tuning," which is pretty apt, given the LP's theme.

Miles Whittaker, as usual, did an incredible job on the mastering, as he has done on my other LPs, McClintic Chorus and Strung Figures.

1. Every Day

2. Sun To Sun

3. Second Life

4. Quarter Life Maintenance

5. Life Day Part 1

6. Life Day Part 2

Manufacturer:

Shadow World c/o Earth Inferno Limited Aspen House, West Terrace, Folkestone CT20 1TH, UK

EU Representative:

UAB Mushroom Agency

Saulėtekio al. 15-1, LT-10224, Vilnius, Lithuania