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Michael Kalus posted a photo:
The Northern Song hermit poet Lin Bu is widely admired ofr his image as a noble scholar who took "the plum blossom as a wife and the crane as a son," and related artistic creations have never ceased through the ages.
TRhis scroll was created by the Lingnasn School master Au Honien (1935 - 2024). The school has always taken "eclecticizing East and West, and fusing the ancient with the modern" as its objective.
This work features strong and vigorous brush momentum, het the washes are even and clean, creating a hazy light and shadow that suggests a transcendent, fairy-like air. The painting was gifted to former Director Chiang Tusung in 1982; it vividly captures the composure and serenity of the scholar sitting alone beneath a plum tree as a white crane circles above.
Michael Kalus posted a photo:
Wu Rongguang (1773–1843) given name was Liaoguang. Wu was a native of Nanhai county in Guangdong province who passed the Imperial examinations at the rank of “presented scholar” in the fourth year of the Jiaqing reign period (1799). Not only was he an expert appraiser of calligraphy and painting, he was also an extremely prolific author.
In the first line of this inscription, the character 崇 (which appears as part of a past emperor’s reign name) is written with three dots underneath the mountain radical (山), so that it appears as 崇. This clue tells us that elements of Wu Rongguang’s calligraphy can be traced back to the Dingwu edition of the “Preface to the Orchid Pavilion.” In his lifetime, Wu had the opportunity to lay eyes upon numerous versions of the preface that were derived from the Dingwu edition, including the Luoshu edition as well as Gao Shiqi’s (1657–1703) and Wang Shu’s bamboo slip inscription editions—the influence they had on Wu’s own calligraphy is evident. Similar traits can also be found in the calligraphy of Zhao Mengfu and Weng Fanggang.
I’m pleased to share our first physical release of the year, arriving courtesy of Griff Fulton, recording as Aspetuck, titled Immersion.
To say this one has taken its time would be putting it lightly. Conversations around the record began even before we came together at Public Records toward the end of 2024, where Griff played that evening. We left with a clear sense that something meaningful was forming. What followed, however, was a classic vinyl-label ritual- five rounds of test presses, each one inching closer, each one not quite there. The kind of process that tests patience, but ultimately sharpens the outcome.
In the time since, Griff has quietly built momentum with a run of releases on Oslated, and Konstrukt, with each one reinforcing his unique voice. But this feels like the LP that brings things into focus. Immersion is a personal work for Griff in ways that reveal themselves gradually; a collection that moves with personal intention, and showing a producer fully in tune with his deep rooted instincts.
Aspetuck has been steadily carving out a name for himself through releases on Never Late and Oslated, garnering a respected following for his DJ mixes and festival performances. Aspetuck’s latest record, Immersion, was sequenced and curated from dozens of ideas spanning a transformative few years in Griff’s life. The album is less a snapshot in time and more of a memory bank - flashes of fatherhood, loss, modular rabbit holes, late-night studio sessions, and long walks by the Hudson River with his daughter.
The emotional undertow of the album is immediate. Opener Hit Me With Your Pet Shark is one of the earliest compositions in the collection, created just months after the loss of Griff’s brother and during the sleepless swirl of new parenthood. Built around a single sound from Spectrasonics Omnisphere, found while rediscovering his brother’s studio gear, the track sets the tone: restrained yet searching, personal without becoming precious.
From there, The Printing Press captures the raw energy of a live jam in Griff’s upstate New York basement, running through a 1980s Tascam mixer like a lo-fi assembly line of synths, pads, and drum machines. REI, named after a spontaneous family mission to find a pink water bottle, encapsulates his knack for imprinting daily minutiae into sound. And title track Immersion- once known simply as Tuesday 303 Jam- emerges from a dinner break and a blender, distilling modular sketches and distorted drums into a powerful, slow-motion march.
Under, Under The Tree hits hardest. Built around a grainy iPhone voice memo of Griff’s daughter singing by the Hudson. And closing the album is Bobik, a collaborative studio session with Moon Patrol channeling the playful chaos of a close friendship and modular exploration. Named after a joke about their golden retriever and filled with alien textures from Griff’s beloved EMU XL7 gifted years ago by his late brother, it’s a fitting send-off to an album that straddles celebration and mourning with grace.
The artwork comes courtesy of Peter Skwiot Smith, whose textured analog/digital aesthetic resonated immediately with Griff’s original vision. Peter’s treatment draws on Griff’s personal photography and leans into motion, blur, and the layered nature of memory, echoing the album’s sonic tone without over-explaining it.
Mastered by Sven Weisemann, Immersion is available on blue smoke colored 12” and digital on May 15th 2026. Please join us on May 8th for a Bandcamp listening party - RSVP here.
