Following a fantastic trilogy of otherworldly, ethereal avant-pop albums,
Matchess (Whitney Johnson) began performing and releasing more drone-oriented music, including the deep listening cycle Fundamental 256 Hz and Huizkol, a meditation on the duality of sevens. Her first release on
Drag City was inspired by a ten-day Vipassana meditation course at the Dhamma Vhadanna Meditation Center, near Joshua Tree, California. This course required disciplined silence, and while Johnson was becoming in tune with her body, she was hearing songs that she wasn't able to write down or record because it would be in violation of the practice. After returning, she tried to recall the songs she'd heard, and decided to score the music for additional musicians, unlike her previous work as
Matchess, which was entirely solo.
Sonescent consists of two side-long pieces, and they feel like suspended memories of music rather than music itself. Opener "Almost Gone" begins as near-silence, with very faint notes stretching across the landscape. At a glacial pace, additional sounds begin to rise up, but everything feels microscopic and it's necessary to turn the volume up loud to hear anything, and even then, it sounds blurry and smeared, as if it's playing from a broken tape deck. Gradually, a violin sequence surfaces with greater clarity than the rest of the piece, though it also fades back into droning waves. By the end of the piece, more sounds feel like they're creeping from a dead tape reel, and it's hard to tell if they're voices or not. "Through the Wall," the second side of the album, takes less time to materialize from the ether, and it's more melodic and dynamic overall. Following a few minutes of swelling synthesizers, a rich, folky violin tune emerges, though it feels like it's being performed in the distance, with some sort of Harry Bertoia-esque sound sculpture in between. The piece later shifts into a period of unnerving, alien sounds, but by the end, it reaches a sense of comfort, with a buried snippet of an earthy folk-rock song as its last memory.
Sonescent is easily the most avant-garde work Johnson has composed so far, and whether or not the listener is familiar with her previous recordings, it'll take at least a full listen or two to adjust to the album's structure and arrangement. Once it clicks, it's a truly unique, engrossing experience that plays with one's perception of memory in relation to music, somewhat reminiscent of the Caretaker's work, but far from its sense of romanticized nostalgia. ~ Paul Simpson