With all its quadrophonic – the altruism of sonics in sound – leanings and peaceful production, wndfrm’s latest release is a hum of a more subdued kind than most shimmering droners out there. Across its 31 minute duration lies a rudimentary way with field recordings, which are used to placate what is less like fridge hum, and more like the sounds of a windswept desert. So in short, this is spectral music that relies on placated minimalism to woo you over, and get under the skin.
This is not a dark ambient release though. It is much warmer, a holier plentitude of temperature figures that keep things slightly cloudy, but always humid and admirable. This characteristic particularly swells at twenty minutes into the tune, bulbously so, as if sprouting new connections in the mind, like the telegraph wire recordings of Harold Budd in the 70s.
As a reviewer and ambient lover who is always searching for the most peaceful tones, which are sometimes the most peaceful drones, wndfrm’s ‘A Land Of Falling Waters’ runs down the tree of life’s branches in this respect. There is a lot to be said for touching the void of the mind that was long declared moribund or frail, a reservoir poisoned by decaying memories.
Like the memory context of creator Tim Westcott, the bio-regions – short for huge agricultural biodiversity – of these tones are envelopingly beautiful, like a sealed note from a messenger that hints at a need to decrypt it. If we think of the concept of ‘it’ as subjective truth, or information technology – in a state of constant stasis encryption/decryption, ‘it’ is really the only confusion in life left that exists. But really, as with a land of falling waters, and Westcott’s dynamically ultramundane music, the link to true, serene beauty.