Swelling strings and a meditative piano line play out the end of the release. The stylistic detour into pure-ambient suits Palda’s skills well and overall A Little Tale of Forest Lewis is a soothing, well-crafted listen.
A 30 minute collection of pure-ambient compositions
Harmi Palda is no stranger to these pages—the Igloo tag for his primary project, Infinite Scale, goes back to 2005, when he released the classic Sound Sensor EP on Toytronic. But we’ve never heard a release quite like this one: a 30 minute collection of pure-ambient compositions that drifts and flows like a series of gorgeous pastel-on-paper sketches. The aptly-named opener “Morning Wake” opens your ears with drifting chimes that reverse and reverberate. “Don’t Forget to Write” features gentler bell-like tones over a shifting, phased ambient drone, and “There Are No Changes” is led by a soft piano figure and supported by washes of warm synth pads.
Palda says of the compositions, “The process of creating music has changed, since the arrival of my son 5 years ago. I occasionally receive his input, by methodically pressing buttons or twisting faders in the way I normally would not, but then I raise an eyebrow, step back and think, that sounds interesting.” If any of these child-inspired tweaks made it into the final mix they are far from the random change-ups he suggests; all the tracks are very subtle affairs. “Spinning Leaf,” true to its title, features a cyclic swell of strings and perhaps the closest thing to a beat on offer: a distant muffled thump, like a kick drum in a far-off cathedral. At its end though, a few plaintive guitar notes enter, bringing a lonesome Western feel with them. “Waiting for the Release” rewards close listening with a stereo-panned Geiger counter click moving around the soundfield as glass chimes induce a sense of movement.
To close things out, “Return to Me” brings some foreboding bass notes under a tinkling that borders on ominous. Swelling strings and a meditative piano line play out the end of the release. The stylistic detour into pure-ambient suits Palda’s skills well and overall A Little Tale of Forest Lewis is a soothing, well-crafted listen.
A Little Tale of Forest Lewis is available on Echoshock. [Bandcamp]
