Navigator, Standby

I’d first heard the title track from Daily Bread’s fifth solo studio album sometime in early 2018: “Navigator, Standby”, a modernized and inspired take on the old space and sci-fi sights and sounds of the 1950s and 60s. As a lifelong space fan, the track’s wide, spacey synths, ethereal beeps and ray gun sounds, and narrator’s radio transmissions piqued my interest instantly. Navigator, Standby has become a full-fledged extension of Daily Bread’s vision behind that track – presented here is a brief highlight of some of that research and discovery.

Both the auditory and visual aesthetics for Navigator, Standby are some of my favorite we’ve crafted a record around. I was huge into everything space going up, particularly the Apollo moon missions of the late 60s and early 70s. By extension I find the retro sci-fi art aesthetic fascinating, and it elicits a lot of curiosity and creativity for me personally. Over the years I’ve collected various graphic books and novels depicting works from prominent artists of that time period, including David Hardy, whose artwork is seen above and featured on the cover of Navigator, Standby.

In the fall of 2018 the crew convened for a Philos afterparty at my home base in St. Louis. It was a great weekend filled with too many toasted ravs. The day after the show, Rhett (Daily Bread) and I spent an afternoon digging around for old space and sci-fi records at Record Exchange, one of the premier record spots in STL. That afternoon and evening was spent discussing the premise for this project while flipping through and pulling inspiration from my old art books and listening to the records we’d found, several of which make up the audio and visual components for Navigator, Standby. This projects encapsulates many months of anticipation, and we’re excited to finally share it with you.