Traces
John P. Hastings & Benjamin Mayock released by Pickled Peach Press
February 27, 2026
https://hastingsmayock.bandcamp.com/album/traces
The Natchez Trace is a primeval footpath running from roughly Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. Originally used by fauna (possibly to find salt licks), it was codified into a path by ancient Native Americans. Using this line through the landscape, John Hastings and Benjamin Mayock have fashioned an album that meditates on our shared stories and histories.
Traces is a radical reframing of our American landscape and how those lands affect its inhabitants. The album focues on three separate and connected, time streams: archaic North America circa 2000 BCE; the colonialist-era, as seen through the eyes of a doomed, possibly syphilitic, explorer; and the 20th century, particularly during the 1960s. These eras are collapsed together, a concatenation of peoples and times into a singularity that roils and pulses. The land itself is a character in this drama: the fertile ground known as the Black Belt Prairie is a place for humans to congregate, utilize, and eventually foul.
The CD / digital release captures performances in situ, from old churches, first-thought-best-thought phone demoes, multi-tracked and layered interviews (inspired by Glenn Gould’s seminal Solitude Trilogy of proto-podcast documentaries), conversations with new found friends, recordings made on the path itself, and much more. The center piece of the album is a group of field recordings taken from John and Ben forming ‘clouds’ of piano chords (in an homage to LaMonte Young’s Well Tuned Piano) at a 19th century church in Rocky Springs, MS. All the live recordings have been kept as close to their source as possible with very little editing and sonic manipulation.
In the studio, John and Ben bowed a grand piano, adding to the sonic resonances of the field recordngs. Stories written on the road were recorded using a vintage Nagra tape recorder and interpolated into the sonic mix.
Together with the album, a photo book from the journeys will also be released. These photographs, ephemera, and traces, were collected and constitute a visual record of the album.
More information: johnphastings.org/traces
Instagram: @johnphastings / @benjaminpmayock
Thanks to: Andrew Smith, Indexical, Burlington City Arts, JoVonn Hill at Mississippi State University, Shannon222, Roosevelt, Hale County Library, Rural Studio
Mastered by A.F. Jones at Laminal Audio, Tracyton, WA.
Recorded on location in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, U.S.A. and in studio at Community of Sound, Burlington, VT, 2021 - 2024.