SEMANTRON "Secrets Of A Krummholz Heart" LP

Some musicians learn their craft through imitation. Dave French began with visions.

As a child he experienced synesthesia, perceiving musical sound as shifting shapes and movement in his mind. When he first sat behind a drum kit at twelve years old, formal instruction lasted only two lessons. Learning other people’s music felt like it would interfere with translating those inner forms into sound, so he chose a different path—one built around exploration rather than imitation.

At eighteen he picked up the guitar and began writing songs before learning traditional chords, focusing on composition rather than studying existing music. For years he kept that creative world separate from his public musical life, playing in bands exclusively as a drummer while quietly developing his own language as a songwriter.

Around that same time he acquired a cassette four-track recorder, beginning a recording journey that now spans more than three decades. Soon after he formed his first band performing his own songs.

A move to France, first Paris, then a small village in the south, became a turning point. In the musical isolation of rural France he began to shape a sound that finally felt personal enough to share.

After returning to Seattle, French took over a recording studio and began producing records professionally, including recording and producing Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden’s solo record In Deep Owl. During the same period he maintained his own band featuring Shepherd on guitar while also joining Tad Doyle’s band Brothers of the Sonic Cloth as drummer.

French soon left the studio behind and expanded his career into the live music world. He ran sound at music venues around Seattle and later toured as a sound engineer for artists including Sleep, Om, and Boris. He also spent years working as a stage technician for artists such as Soundgarden, Neurosis, and others.

In 2020 the pandemic brought that chapter to an end, but another chapter was already unfolding.

French joined the live ensembles of Steve Von Till—both his solo project and Harvestman—performing synth, Moog bass, percussion, guitar, bass, and backing vocals. Soon after, he was invited to become the new drummer for Yob, replacing the longtime drummer of twenty years.

Yet throughout the years of touring, another body of work had quietly been taking shape.

Traveling constantly with a classical guitar, French wrote songs in backstage rooms, ferry crossings, hotel rooms, and remote landscapes. These pieces gradually evolved into a solo project he would call Semantron. The name comes from an ancient monastic instrument: a plank of beech wood struck rhythmically with branches to call monks to meditation. The word itself is so old that its original pronunciation has long been lost to time. French chose the name because the music shares a similar purpose—slow, resonant, and meditative.

In the winter of 2023 he rented an off-grid cabin at the foot of Mount Adams, a conical volcano in Washington State, where he began recording the core guitar tracks for fifteen songs. Six of those pieces became the debut album, Secrets of a Krummholz Heart.

The title draws on the alpine phenomenon of krummholz—trees near the limits of survival that become bent and twisted by relentless wind and harsh weather. For French, the image became a metaphor: a heart shaped by the forces of life yet still rooted and alive.

French performs every instrument on the record himself, recording acoustic foundations in the mountain cabin before completing drums, bass, electric guitars, and vocals between his home studio and the rehearsal space of Yob, and incorporating sounds he recorded in nature: trees knocking together in the wind, stones settling during a high mountain rockslide, ice breaking underfoot, the voice of a raven cut into short percussive sounds, and more. The result is immersive and deeply personal music—patient, atmospheric, and elemental—echoing the expansive spirit of Pink Floyd and the ritualistic beauty of Dead Can Dance.

Tracklist:
01. Primary Planets
02. Prisoner of the Sun
03. At the Feet of Friendship
04. Piha
05. Dry Falls
06. Krummholz Heart

Pressing Information:
500x Green & Black Swirl