Skyminds: Shapes & Traces
Internal Rhythm

Without being wholly unrelated, the material Sean Conrad and Michael Henning create under the Skyminds alias is quite a bit different from the music they've released individually—the former as Ashan and Channelers, the latter as Selaroda—on Conrad's Inner Islands imprint. Whereas that label emphasizes music suggestive of some transcendental, non-corporeal space, the tracks on Shapes & Traces are generally earthier. That's not a criticism, merely a statement of clarification, as there's much to recommend about the recording, Skyminds' second, especially when its relaxed feel proves so rewarding.

That vibe is in keeping with the area the two call home, the Bay Area in Northern California; though it's not inconceivable, it would be harder to imagine music of such languor originating out of NYC by comparison. It likewise suggests connections to the West Coast in the strains of folk-rock that occasionally surface amidst elements of other styles. As the seven pieces play out, don't be surprised if your thoughts turn to memories, real or imagined, of peyote-fueled visions and dusk-to-dawn ragas.

When coupled with a string drone, hand drums and bells lend “Sand Patterns” a trippy Eastern vibe that evokes a sun-dazed trek through the desert and the altered state such an undertaking would induce. An animated hi-hat pattern solidly grounds the subsequent “Beneath the Lake,” though a dulcimer's shimmering pluck and hushed harmony vocals send the material into a less earthbound zone. Even earthier is “Beyond the Clearing,” whose heavy funk groove and swirling synth washes turn the cut into a starry-eyed jam that's as much shoegaze as post-rock. On a more electronic tip, “Interphase” undergirds whirrs, bleeps, and other synthetic touches with an android beat pulse, the fleeting sketch offering another facet of the Skyminds universe. Wholly different from it in their blissed-out character, “The Atmosphere” and the closing “Soft Landing” warp time and space with hazy vocal chants, hand bells, flutes, and strums.

August 2020