Zazz: Soft Harbinger
Inner Islands

A captivating debut album from Zazz duo Angela Frances Wilson and Braeyden Jae, Soft Harbinger presents two sidelong dreamscapes the pair crafted via long-distance means, though you'd hardly know it when their respective contributions blend so seamlessly. Aspiring to “develop a creative dialogue through sound,” Wilson, an LA-based interdisciplinary artist and composer who operates solo as Teasips and partners with Brian Griffith under the Electric Sound Bath name, and Braeyden, known for his Softest project, sent sound files back and forth with no specific agenda guiding them or pre-determining the route taken. That they handled the collaborative process so relaxedly makes the high quality of the outcome all the more striking.

Jae's credited with digital effects, arrangement, and keyboard on the release, and Wilson concert flute and modular synth. Of the two tracks, it's side one's “Forever is a Distance” that's particularly potent. Time slows from the first moment when Wilson's vibrato-laden, multi-layered flute figures, coupled with softly shuddering synthesizer patterns, lull the listener into a deep state of entrancement for nineteen minutes. So quietly intoxicating are the music's drowsy drift and swirling ebb-and-flow, one wishes it could go on forever. The flip's twenty-minute “Garden Approach” works field recordings of water drizzle into its peaceful sound design, a move that imparts a strongly scented New Age vibe to the setting. Radiant synthesizer washes, twinkling textures, delicate flute utterances, and ambient shimmer add to the outdoorsy character of the meditation and make it seem like the kind of pastoral paradise one would never want to leave.

April 2018