As the sun goes down and the shadows of trees grow long, a peace seems to settle on the gardens and parks across our world. Birds take on a quiet, calmer note in their song, as the day is nearly over for both us and them.
Building simple cycles signaling a sense of anticipation
Music to evoke for the listener the feeling of wandering through a peaceful garden at day’s end. Restful and blissful electronic music with flutes, some sparse piano, guitar, hand percussion. A 64 minute and 47 seconds walk through a garden is a treat many of us may find mentally and physically restorative. The shading boughs of trees during summer and paths between planted shrubs and flowers are quite different to the surroundings that most of us encounter at work or in our homes. And it doesn’t have to be your own garden—it could just as easily be a public park or a reserve of vegetation growing beside a highway or river.
As the sun goes down and the shadows of trees grow long, a peace seems to settle on the gardens and parks across our world. Birds take on a quiet, calmer note in their song, as the day is nearly over for both us and them. The title track, “A Walk in the Shadow Garden” (5:11) awakens this air of serenity, imagining a gentle walk through some trees. I hear a piano spirit with sparse shakers and haunting hand drums, I watch the shadows slowly emerge. The number three comes to mind. There is a guitar strummed, sounds of insects or something else gathering in the shadows, building simple cycles signaling a sense of anticipation and a feeling of the prologue for what we now might hear next.
From a high altitude I hear something very cold and perfect, turning in slow motion and experiencing amazing vistas, “Clouds Over Fields” (6:07). Soaring atmospheric glowing drones, long sustained tones gaining substance. From here I see the fields below us, squares and rectangles and other oddly notched shapes, roads connect all in a straight lone line, until the curve starts. Now “Dawn Redwood” (3:55) begins being friendly and happy to fit in where needed, electronic night birds call in the distance, the air is crisp and sparse, now sense the stirrings in the forest atmosphere. I think I hear ringing metal and night creatures calling.
The summer foliage is alive with creatures, overall they are very still, just relaxing. The feeling is engaging, “Hemlock Grove” (5:00) brings very slightly denser magic. I think I hear lots of small pieces of metal ringing in the distance, behind the flutes and synth drones coiling in closer, some of the tones can move like a large serpent. Consider what you might find looking lower into the surface of the Shadow Garden. “Of Mosses and Liverworts” (6:05), furnishes a repeating slow flourish within the slow rhythm or breath measured silence. I think I hear distinct echoed “tings” and there is a flute in the cathedral, with a simple slow expression, now and then sometimes an isolated repeating arpeggio “tring!”
The summer foliage is alive with creatures ::
The sound opens wider, night insects own the landscape. Now consider the birdscape, this is at night. The birds are soaring easily in the night sky, skimming treetops and russling the leaves. “Maple Glen” (7:47) brings a dark awakening forest atmosphere with more creatures purring somewhere nearby, it is shadowy at all hours of the day in the Shadow Garden. Now imagine being submerged in darkness with sounds of activity all around moving in slow motion. I hear serpent darkness here too, in the crisp cool air. Next I hear what sounds like a real acoustic piano within the electronica, the mist has colors that change. “Rising Mist” (6:19) takes place after a sunny day, a dark piano with a softly building edge. The night insects are back. The tinging metal is back, bringing along the piano darkness. “Dark Waters” (6:32) for me this is a separate dream amidst the garden, underwater. At night of course. The little pond goes down into the dark waters for miles, it is much bigger than it looks. Now we are looking back from the darkness below up into the light somewhere, this is a very dark and creepy part of the Shadow Garden. That might be an old fashioned organ playing down in the deep water, with a slowly bending flute drone, all so long slow and deep. Brushed metal, the opaque darkness is hiding canyons out there, each has its own echoes of sound. All is lost.
Now the music asks questions in sound, what is that? Somehow capturing the human experience, “Perchance to Dream” (8:57). There are little strange actors in the dark fog of my continuing dream. Cloud castles and changing faces on forms passing by, quietly emerging in the dim light, capering moon moths gather in slow motion. Feel memory fragments tinkling as in dreams almost recognized, always a few steps ahead, always staying perfectly slow. Breath soundings of brass and silver, mingling within the sound environment. “Beechwood” (1:29) Over so soon, a shy big animal, maybe a deer, is just out of sight. Remember, the whole album takes place in twilight, always within a slow fade.
A finishing series of slow portraits, the conversations are abstract, through a shimmering veil in the Shadow Garden, rippled chords that appear now and then. “Conversations with a Gardener” (7:26), and I think we were talking about dawn while watching the sunset. The gardener was talking about curious events in the past, and talking about many different simple plant life matters. I started talking about a passing fancy. We then were talking about the dreams of plants, what that might be to experience. The gardener was talking about the smell of dawn. I started talking about the time last light, and talking about water. The gardener next brought up something about that dark water, then suddenly talking about plants again, those eternally dreaming plants.
A Walk in the Shadow Garden is available on Spotted Peccary. [Bandcamp | Site]
