There’s an easy connection to make between ambient music and forest
wandering. You’re just there, communing with nature, and every sound that
surrounds you is “ambient” in its basic form: it produces “an encompassing
atmosphere.” Schweben, aka Philipp Hager, takes this to its obvious
extreme, marrying field recordings with ambient music (synthesizers and such) to produce “an encompassing
atmosphere” that you can take with you anywhere – you don’t have to be stuck
out in the middle of the woods to have a similar experience. But what you should have is headphones, because
otherwise you’re going to miss out on the subtleties of the delicate sonic
experience (which you should already be planning for anyway, knowing that you
bought this tape from Cosmic Winnetou).
Each track is arboreal by design; there’s “Arbol del Tule” (Tree of
Tule, Mexico), “Tree of Life,” “Lone Cypress,” “Major Oak,” and “Baobab.” Each
is a gentle paean to growth, as the long-form, patient tones mimic the
development of plants. You can almost see sprouts and buds stretching and
blooming as you listen to Trees, the intricate
detail of the sounds zoomed in to the organic reactions. Sounds intimate,
solitary, relaxing, doesn’t it? It sure does! And it delivers as you sink
deeper into the trance, the scent of bark and leaves and needles hitting your
nose, the underbrush crackling beneath your boots. Maybe instead of taking the
woods with you back into civilization you should just give in and take your Walkman
out into the woods – I’m actually thinking that’s the best way to go about this
right now.
https://schweben.bandcamp.com/
http://cosmicwinnetou.blogspot.com/2020/12/cw52.html
--Ryan
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