We need musicians like Suseti and Henrik Meierkord who take making slow introspective music designed for contemplation an art form, and not just something that can be replicated with a few music apps and some help from soulless AI.
Chamber music fused with electronic textures
There is a real need for contemplative music these days, and that need is being felt by the many artists pulled to work in the genres of ambient and drone music. There has even been a revival of the much maligned New Age genre (which does have some overlap in the Venn diagram made with minimalism, ambient, and drone). What all have in common is a longing for music that is a form of sustenance, is soothing, and gives listeners a chance to have time for reflection.
Everyone who has surfed YouTube looking for ambient music has probably come across collections of “lo-fi beats for study” or “electronic music for concentration.” It has recently come to my attention through the writings of jazz historian Ted Gioia, that this kind of “bland, generic music has left the elevators behind, instead going mainstream” with an anonymous musician making songs and playlists for Spotify of boring unmemorable muzak. That’s why we need musicians like Suseti and Henrik Meierkord who take making slow introspective music designed for contemplation an art form, and not just something that can be replicated with a few music apps and some help from soulless AI.
The cello that is Meierkord’s primary instrument is a key to this. Such an instrument requires devotion in a way an app does not. It also connects ambient, which has shaped up to become a dominant style of music over the fifty plus years since Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Brian Eno, 1978) came out, to the classical music of the past. Suseti and Meierkord here create chamber music fused with electronic textures to elevate the mind and spirit.
These kind of artists should be dominating the playlists designed as music for studying. Baroque music has famously been shown to boost cognitive ability. Here Meierkord’s glowing strings are augmented by glistening natural sounds and textures from Indian musician Sunil Sharma (aka Suseti).
In an age when artificial intelligence is being employed by the lazy to create playlists for profit, genuine music is at a premium.
At just under thirty minutes, this is a perfect album to put on in the morning, after you’ve had espresso, or a couple strong cups of hot black coffee, as you ready yourself to dive within for a session of meditation. Alternately, it’s also great night music. These could just be the nocturnes you need to listen to when reading a good book at the end of the day.
Trakt is available on Labile. [Bandcamp]
