It’s late in a season of untimely cold, yet we’re fortunate to see the emergence of The Original Flowering Earth, the solo work of Kyle Wade. The ‘Hosshin’ C30 is the third or fourth tape under the title, but shows a deliberation and creative clarity from the Goldtimers label manager. Structured as a side-long collage on A, and a triplet of meditative practices on B, the tape presents synthesizer minimalism nicely-balanced between the negation of forms and the position of content. While like most ambient works the composite sound seems inclined to retreat into the background, this is not the only force of the sounds in aggregate, which is why we might not define this as ambient so much as deep listening: phenomenally so similar, yet practically so opposed. For the absent-minded listener, there is little to jog you from your fugue – all the synthetic sounds are familiar, smooth, naturopathic. Shimmering, swelling, chirping. Yet for those looking for the shape of this content, for an arc or a pattern, the experience is far more rewarding. A soft break of thunder billows the sky. An arpeggiotic thought escapes like an uncanny configuration of rocks. A slow blink between moments feels too serene to be coincidence, drawing us back to the author of this sound and practice. Edition of 50.
((Cave)) Recordings cassette
$5
HERE