New album by Seaworthy on Preservation. While still exploring the ambient soundscape sphere with solid ties to field recordings and a deep melancholic lucidity, this time, Cameron Webb left his guitar aside and explored the full use of harmonium as new major element of predilection and signature, even if the acoustic guitar is still a recurring instrument.
I first felt off-key with this album, not knowing how to enter it, missing the processed guitar sounds, but soon as with his previous discography, the seduction occurs backwards. It's a minimal album with no apparent sources of direct enthusiasm, it seems austere and uncluttered.
Also it is subtle, authentic and humble. Cameron is fighting with his own obsessions, exploring with intensity and devotion dimensions that are at the center of his feelings and reflections. Embarking inside "Bellows and breaths" is both starting an introspective journey through the core of our mind, and starting a solitary walk along sinuous path, crossing valleys and hills, rivers, fields and distant churches and buildings.
It's not an easy record, and not directly attractive. It takes time and the good environmental conditions to fully enjoy it, and it finally works, mostly as a contemplative meditation. Though no real musical relations can be made, "Bellow and Breath" put me in this state of mind I used to feel when I was listening to Stephan Micus records on ECM. It makes you want to forget about TV, radio, internet and just find some relief a few days staying in the countryside, enjoying landscapes and natural events, watching bushes, flowers or cows grazing mindlessly.
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