12 February 2012

Smyth - sanibel (2012, Analog Path)

Analog Path is a Japanese ambient label which focus on the analog sound with so far, among a few others releases by Celer or Brian Gainger.

Jared Smyth is a musician and designer from Tallahassee. Last summer, he spent some time on Sanibel Island, Florida, recording field recordings and manipulating sounds, achieving the present album, trying to capture the aural atmosphere of the settings.


"Sanibel" is a relatively standard ambient album, contemplative and belonging to an almost physical reality.

It starts with the lonely atmosphere of "Blossoms", walking along clamps of flowers, near the beach side, under a cloudy sky, one morning summer  along empty paths. With "Buzzing heat" I imagine the invasive and overcoming scorching heat of certain afternoons where hiding in the darkness of (air-conditioned) rooms was the only issue. 

I prefer "Waves Crest", using in background the sound of waves and seabirds with a reflexive and nocturnal reverberated electric guitar (and bass) in the forefront with notes falling one by one, it creates a really arresting space where you're free to breath slowly and gain some respite. 

Something like a contact microphone under water on "Surface" and the guitar melancholy just become deeper and strangely moving.  

I feel the need to put the volume to a higher level with "Departure"just as if I was watching the sea from a cliff or trying to see people on a boat a few miles away. There is a feeling of vertigo too, and apprehension, as if the composition was too destructured, pushing you at risk. 

I feel much better through the weightlessness of "Arrival", as if I was a sea bird or a fisher, back from a long journey at sea, seeing the coasts of Sanibel slowly drawn by the sunset. 


http://analogpath.com/main/sanibel/

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