Rollingly classic, accommodating ambient, A Soft Circle leaves a big, cozy space between the listener and his or her thoughts and the music. The so-called natural world is omnipresent, as if he were recording outdoors.
The first green shoots of John Sobocan’s recording career were self-tended and released under names including Cow, Bubble, Mu and simply John. There’s a nice bio here and a generous helping of back catalog here. A Soft Circle is his label debut and as with his previous work, is dharma on a disc.
Sobocan puffs gulal powder (he’s spent some time in India) all over the woody countryside of his native stomping grounds in southern Ontario. Rollingly classic, accommodating ambient, A Soft Circle leaves a big, cozy space between the listener and his or her thoughts and the music. The so-called natural world is omnipresent, as if he were recording outdoors.
Rising slowly like the sun, “Free” slowly illuminates a landscape from which distant spools of uncoiling guitar lift like cranes taking flight. This landscape sings from its depths, radiating layers of loops, humming as it clings to earth’s surface. Sobocan deftly integrates the synthetic and the organic until there is no telling. As unassuming and yet imposing an ambient panorama as you will behold.
You’ll feel your heart strangely warmed.
A Soft Circle is available on Databloem. [Release page]
