Ashan:
Transfigurations
Inner Islands
Inner Travels: Nature Spirit
Inner Islands
Text accompanying Steve Targo's latest Inner Travels release reads, “The intent behind Nature Spirit is the same as it was for the other Inner Travels albums—to create music that brings peace to its listeners. In a world that rushes people along, Nature Spirit slows life down so that everything can be appreciated and enjoyed.” Of course, while said claim is upheld by the release, it could be applied as legitimately to all of the cassette recordings Sean Conrad issues on his Oakland-based Inner Islands label.
Though Targo recorded Nature Spirit at his Wisconsin home, its three settings are heavily informed by the outdoors, specifically material sourced from his own self-collected library of field recordings; in fact, the first sounds presented on the recording are nature-related, with “Babble” initiated by three minutes of bird chirps and river burble. The point explicitly made, real-world sounds then recede to allow electric piano and synthesizer tinklings to take over and establish a meditative mood (Targo apparently used a Yahama Reface CP to generate the Rhodes and piano sounds). An even denser nature scene introduces “Forest,” which, similar to the opener, sees its intro give way to synthetic sparkle free of field recordings. At twenty minutes, the B-side's “Calm After the Storm” is twice the length of the other settings and thus offers an even more immersive plunge into Inner Travels' world. After two minutes of thunder, rain drizzle, and bird calls, the music proper begins, in this case Targo coupling layers of electric piano musings and synthesizer washes with the reverberant ping of two singing bowls. In all three cases, time does feel slowed, with the material thereby granting the listener a forty-minute opportunity to suspend, if briefly, the hectic pace of modern life. It's an interesting mix: on the one hand, the field recordings root the music in the natural world; on the other, the lustrous electronic sounds lend the material an ethereal magic that displaces it to a realm that's more celestial than earthly.
Complementing Targo's set is the twelfth release by Conrad himself under the Ashan guise, itself a follow-up to last year's Far Drift Afield and, relatedly, the 2019 release of For Being, which he issued under the Channelers alias. Transfigurations presents six pieces Conrad assembled from live performances involving Fender Rhodes, a ‘90s Yahama keyboard, tape recordings, samples, effects, and processing. As is always the case with his material, however, the ingredients prove to be far less relevant than the result, which in this case amounts to forty-four minutes of transporting drift. The gentle swells of “Transfigurations in Blue” establish the meditative template the subsequent pieces are only too happy to follow. Synthetic washes, percussive rustlings, sighing organ tones, and soft, neon-light flourishes induce a state of calm in the receptive listener; occasional field recording details weave their way into the sound design, with at such moments the distance between Ashan and Inner Travels becoming very small indeed. Hushed, flute-like sonorities deepen the entrancement of “Wading In,” a piece so alluring one wishes it would carry on ten times longer than its eight soothing minutes. “Snow Stone Still Air,” on the other hand, evokes a wintry scene in not just title but also its mist-drenched flow of echoing bell flutter and ripple effects. As pleasing as such settings are, they're perhaps bettered by “String on an Open Plane,” as stirring, serenading, and time-suspending a piece as Conrad's created. Anyone whose budget doesn't allow for getaways to peaceful tropical zones could do a whole lot worse than look to this kind of material as a substitute. His self-described “unguided excursions to proposed realms of being” might not facilitate bodily travel, but they do avail inner transport of a particularly satisfying kind.November 2019