Albums
The Tomorrows Before Us (2025) explores how history repeats itself. Quirky, bold, and surprising, this album features mostly upbeat rhythms with playful yet probing lyrics. Many of these were written during the dark political times of 2020, then revisited them in 2025.
After discovering a trove of old film archives of government war propaganda and other public domain films, The Tomorrows Before Us evolved into a series of connected accompanying videos that reinforce the album's reckoning with capitalism and the military-industrial complex.
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None of Us Exist Alone (2025) is the second collaboration between writer Anne Liu Kellor and Shady Planets. Combining Anne's lyrical spoken word and Shady Planets' dark grooves and blues, this LP explores themes of ancestral ties, longing, and embodied wisdom.
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The Night Around Us (2023) is a lyrical, meditative, downtempo electronic journey inspired by stars, music, and summer nights. Featuring voice samples by Anne Liu Kellor and others, The Night Around Us was created over a few months while on summer break, soaking in dreamy, moody worlds of beauty and introspection. The album art features a photo of evergreen trees and a painting by Belben, merged together into a gray world of shadowy depths and branches.​
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In Orbit (2023) features cosmos-inspired themes and NASA samples, taking listeners on an astronaut's journey into space - and back. It kicks off with a driving beat, then shoots listeners out into a trippy ambient electronic dreamworld, before bringing you back down to surface. In Orbit was created during a two-week winter break from Belben's work in the schools. The album art, created by Belben, is a graphic adaptation of a NASA photo.
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Sketches of a Daydream (2022) is Shady Planets' first album. It features ambient, downtempo electronic grooves that take listeners through meandering soundscapes that feel like summer vibes in nature. Written during Covid while trapped in a studio apartment in Seattle, this album will take you on a moody yet ultimately uplifting ride as you chill out and unwind from your day. The album art features a contour drawing of Belben by Anne Liu Kellor, graphically designed by Belben.
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Learning to Speak (2021) is Shady Planets and Anne Liu Kellor's first collaboration. Adapting excerpts from Kellor's memoir, Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, this album features driving bass lines, 80s new wave minimalism, and probing, spoken word meditations inspired by Kellor's experiences as a bilingual Chinese American woman living in China during the late 90s. Learning to Speak was edited and recorded over a period of a few months. Many of the songs were created using erasure poetry methods out of the memoir's existing text. The album art features a graphic illustration created by Belben out of an original painting by Kellor.