workshirt recordings
music and other noises
by steve seel
album progress
posted 9-9-25
The new album from Dismantlists is in the very final stages of mixing, and mastering should follow in short order. After its release, I'm looking forward to some live performance taking place, as I've been building an embarrassingly complex pedal board to approximate these compositions in a live setting ... hopefully without embarrassment to myself or all of those present.
The Lavalier record is coming along much more slowly. I'm gonna be holding myself up on a walker by the time I get these songs out, but the work proceeds nonetheless. Still hopeful for a release in 2026.
But yes, Dismantlists has moved to the front of the pack, so prepare for some glorious boredom very soon. One of the completed tracks is below (and yes, the title is a reference to one of my favorite song lyrics). As always, thanks for listening.
-- ss.
photo: kaja reichardt
dismantlists
electronic / solo guitar /
instrumental / ambient
2003-present
Pilgrims is the most recent album from Dismantlists, released in 2020.
Dismantlists began as a liberation - from singing. I had been attempting to write and perform traditional songs since my mid-20s, but in 2003, I abruptly aborted all my singing and songwriting because the process was not proving salutary to my overall mental health, shall we say. One day my buddy Reg said, "why don't you try taking your voice out of it and see what happens," so I recorded a simple instrumental and I realized that it was a language I had always "thought in" - inspired as much by the instrumental music of David Sylvian, Richard Skelton, and Matthew Robert Cooper (Eluvium) as by composers like Gavin Bryars and John Luther Adams. It is almost entirely guitar, even the sounds that don't appear to be.
The two full-length Dismantlists releases are on all the major streaming platforms, and the full catalog of tracks live on the Bandcamp page.
Thanks for listening to it and for supporting the music.
album photo by jon mcallister
lavalier
After many years of making purely instrumental music, I'm returning to writing songs with lyrics and singing them. The track posted here is an example of where this appears to be headed.
A full Lavalier record is being assembled - slowly - and I think it will be a mix of traditional songs and ambient pieces.
Thanks for listening.
photo: mick haupt
steve seel
is a musician from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His current projects consist of Dismantlists and Lavalier.
Wait, I thought this guy was a DJ.
Yes, I am a longtime public radio host, currently working at Classical Minnesota Public Radio.
Does he release any music under his own name?
No, that's another guy.
What is "Workshirt Recordings?" A record label?
No - mainly an umbrella title for my various noisemaking, both musical and voice-related. (Trust me, I hardly have the entrepreneurial umph necessary to run a record label). The name comes from my favorite article of clothing.
So what about his radio stuff? Is that worth investigating at all?
Why yes. There are two nationally syndicated shows in particular you might like: Extra Eclectic, which is about contemporary classical, and Symphony Cast. There's also this, which was a lot of fun, and this was pretty cool too.
