Patient Hands Returns with new album 'There Are No Graves Here'

Patient Hands, the solo-project of Saskatchewan based ambient songwriter Alexander Stooshinoff, today announces his sophomore album, There Are No Graves Here, set for release later this year, and shares the first single and video from the album, “Opening”.

Watch/Share: Patient Hands “Opening”

“With “Opening” I tried to capture the feeling of pure potentiality or the openness of a new beginning, even if it comes after tragedy,” explains Stooshinoff. “Change isn’t always kind to us, but I wanted this track to be hopeful and confident rather than cynical. It is composed of only two elements, a granulated nylon string guitar track, and a synth bass line.”

The accompanying video is Toronto photographer Lane Dorsey’s directorial debut. Dorsey found Patient Hand’s music through Instagram and they started to work together. The video itself was largely improvised. “We shot it in one afternoon in Toronto while I was there on tour”, says Alexander. “He wanted to shoot in slow motion with a wide letterbox and we went from there. In it there's a strange juxtaposition between seeing an acoustic guitar being played and hearing something ostensibly 'electronic,' but in the video I'm actually playing the guitar piece that I later sampled, hinting at the source material.”

There Are No Graves Here is Patients Hands sophomore record and follows from his debut 2019 release Stoic. It is a record of musical aphorisms for heartbreak and homelessness, dying mothers, and all the ambiguity. The album title came from a recording that a professor of Stooshinoff’s played in class. “I heard the line”, says Stooshinoff “”there are no graves here,” and it stuck with me. The idea of ‘no grave’ became a metaphor for feeling like I had no place to bury the past. The past was constantly alive.”

Patient Hands is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Alexander Stooshinoff. A Russian Doukhobor (‘spirit-wrestler’) originally from the Canadian Prairies, Stooshinoff relocated to Montréal in 2015, where he earned a degree in philosophy and electroacoustics before returning to his native Saskatchewan.

Early 2020 saw a reissue of Patient Hand’s debut full length album, Stoic, on Japanese label Moorworks, and an accompanying 13-date Japanese tour. There Are No Graves Here will be self-released internationally later this year and via Moorworks in Japan.

Pre-order There Are No Graves Here now