Nate Wagner is no stranger to the contemplative. Over scores (scores, I say! Well, several, anyway) of
releases, Wagner as Leaaves has dived headfirst into many an ambient deep end,
whether using synthesizers or guitars or samples, and he has always emerged
from his immersive excursions with enough material to drag us along with him, back
into it all. He’s even made an off-the-wall Terry Crews–sampling left turn! That one was wild.
On 12 Worlds, though, Wagner
is back to the ambient stuff, drawing on field recordings that came to him from
some of his cohorts, and with them in hand, he spins hypnagogic dreamscapes
that swirl and dissipate. There’s always a sense of place within the Leaaves
oeuvre, and here it’s where you are, your present, yet overlaid with secret realities
that aren’t often observed. Fortunately, via delicate playing that intertwines
with the found sound, Wagner helps to remove the veil from these secret worlds
and allows them to interact with the one you’re used to. It’s a neat trick.
So you can let it all fade into your headphones (you’ll need
headphones) as the overlapped worlds of your particular place encroach and intermingle.
The sounds flow like inhalations, exhalations, processes of connecting with the
molecules around you. I bet you just never knew so many things were there at
once, such incredible invisible oddities.
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